Ukraine Accelerates Solar Power Expansion

Before Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine's solar boom was driven largely by generous feed-in tariffs, helping installed solar capacity reach 8 GW by 2022. The war, however, destroyed or put beyond Kyiv's control around 2.6 GW of capacity, with large solar farms in southern Ukraine suffering the heaviest losses.

According to the Ukrainian news outlet Ekonomichna Pravda, the country's renewable energy sector is now undergoing a fundamental transformation. Instead of building large utility-scale solar farms that feed electricity into the national grid, investment is increasingly shifting toward decentralized generation.

Businesses and households seeking greater energy independence amid continued Russian attacks on Ukraine's power infrastructure are driving the trend. According to the Solar Energy Union, up to 90% of new installations have a capacity of no more than 1 MW. Companies are installing rooftop systems on shopping centers, warehouses and logistics terminals, primarily to meet their own electricity needs.

The number of residential solar installations connected to the grid has doubled during the war to around 87,000. Although the total increase in installed capacity is difficult to estimate, Ukraine added about 0.5 GW of new solar capacity in 2023 alone.

A similar – though logistically more challenging – trend is emerging in the wind energy sector. Before the war, Ukraine had 2 GW of installed wind capacity, around 80% of which was either destroyed or fell outside government control following the invasion.

Recovery is gradually gathering pace. Between 2023 and 2025, Ukraine added 491 MW of new wind capacity. Growth accelerated further this year, with 130 MW installed in the first quarter alone out of a planned 500-600 MW for the full year.

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