Odesa Eyes Waste-to-Energy Plant at 4.5 Billion Hryvnias, but Funding Gap Looms Large

The city of Odesa is considering a new combined heat and power plant fired by refuse-derived fuel — RDF and SRF — produced from sorted municipal waste, with a preliminary price tag of 4.5 billion hryvnias. A waste-sorting facility is envisaged near the future plant to supply raw material. No construction timeline has been set.

The proposal sits inside a broader municipal energy-efficiency programme running from 2022 to 2029, with an overall budget of nearly 33 billion hryvnias. Roughly 79 percent of that programme’s total funding is expected to come from external investment and loans rather than city coffers — a gap that has yet to be filled.

Experts see promise in the concept. Hennadiy Ryabtsev, chief researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, said the plant’s economic feasibility would hinge on the volume and quality of fuel available, the emissions-control system, the cost of preparing raw materials, and compliance with environmental standards.

Energy and utilities expert Yurii Zvolendovskyi identified the existing Odesa thermal-station site — covering 24 hectares, with portions currently idle — as a rational location. The site already has rail links, gas-network connections, and heat-distribution mains in place. Analysts broadly agree that such a facility could reduce the city’s reliance on natural gas and help address part of its household-waste challenge, though the project’s path from concept to operation remains unclear.

The information was reported by Suspilne and cited by EkoPolitika.

Source: ЕкоПолітика