INTERVIEW: “Give us a megawatt of sun”: Where communities go wrong

More solar panels do not always mean a better energy project.

One of the common mistakes made by communities is trying to design a solar power plant with the maximum possible capacity, often without correlating it with the facility’s actual consumption and integration capabilities.

As Nataliia Kholodova, Project Manager at the NGO Ekoclub, explains, this becomes especially apparent when grant funding opportunities arise: the “give us a megawatt of sun” mindset can outpace the answer to the core question — where and how this electricity will actually be used.

An effective project starts not with maximizing equipment quantity, but with analyzing community needs, consumption profiles, and selecting the site where the solution will yield the greatest impact.

Sometimes the right decision is not to scale up capacity, but to relocate the project to another facility where it will operate more efficiently.

Learn more about why a comprehensive approach outweighs the “the more, the better” principle in the new 100GREEN video snippet.

The full version of the interview is available on the 100GREEN YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/0tk04NsE5fE?si=iYdQDL4e_bqruq8j