Oleksandr Dombrovskyi: Energy security begins with access to energy

In wartime conditions, assessing the energy sector solely through the cost of a kilowatt-hour is no longer sufficient. Above all, electricity must be physically available to people, businesses and critical infrastructure.

This was emphasized by Oleksandr Dombrovskyi, Chairman of the Board of Global 100 RE Ukraine and President of PJSC MHP Eco Energy.

According to him, the energy crisis of 2022–2023 clearly demonstrated that when centralized power supply is unavailable, the key issue is no longer the price of electricity, but whether energy can be accessed at all.

That is why Ukrainian businesses, municipalities and individual consumers were forced to rely heavily on diesel generators. This was an expensive solution with obvious drawbacks, but it allowed essential infrastructure to continue operating and helped cities maintain basic services.

Electricity means functioning elevators, public transport, industrial production, life-support systems and everyday services that are essential to the normal functioning of a modern city.

For this reason, the discussion about the future of Ukraine’s energy system must go beyond the cost of electricity alone.

The focus is increasingly shifting to reliability, resilience, access to generation and the ability of the system to continue operating even under the most difficult conditions.

This approach is directly linked to the need to develop a more decentralized energy architecture, including local generation, energy storage systems and solutions that can provide consumers with greater autonomy in the event of disruptions to the centralized grid.

“A kilowatt-hour first has to be available. Only then does the question of its price arise,” Dombrovskyi noted, outlining what he sees as one of the fundamental principles for shaping Ukraine’s new energy model.

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