Wind power plant to be built in Chernobyl

Ukraine and Germany have signed a memorandum on the construction of a wind farm around the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. This was welcomed by nuclear energy experts and environmental activists – that Chornobyl is gradually becoming a symbol of renewable energy for the future, shedding its image as the site of the largest man-made disaster in human history, which was the 1986 Chernobyl accident. A solar power plant has already been opened in Chornobyl, and now a wind power plant will be built, which could become a symbol of a technological breakthrough for Ukraine after the war.

According to Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi, First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, plans to build a wind farm in Chornobyl were hatched before the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is part of a broader plan to transform the Chornobyl zone into a Recovery Zone, where clean energy will be used.

“The war did not change them (the plans), but temporarily suspended them… The Exclusion Zone is an attractive and promising area for the development of not only renewable energy, but also other environmentally friendly technical solutions,” Krasnolutsky said.

The memorandum on the construction of the wind farm was signed on 11 September during a visit to Ukraine by German Minister of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Anneleine Burbock.

According to the German minister, Berlin will not abandon “supporting Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression: economically, militarily, humanitarianly”. She also noted that Ukraine should make more use of renewable energy sources. Burbock is the leader of the German Green Party, which is part of the government coalition.

According to Burbock, green electricity from Chornobyl is “the future version of peace”. This means that after the war and victory, the reconstruction of Ukraine should turn it into a technological vanguard state.