A dream in the South: checking out green energy projects in the southern regions

Southern Ukraine has the potential for green energy development. It is here that a significant number of renewable energy projects have been registered - Mykolaiv region is one of the leaders in terms of the number of projects in the Dream system, Odesa and Kherson regions are not far behind. And Mykolaiv and Kherson rank first in terms of the number of RES projects in Ukraine. At the same time, out of 39 initiatives, only 6 have funding available - a total of UAH 20 million.

The implementation of all submitted projects requires more than UAH 8 billion. This is despite the fact that 15 projects have no budget at all. The most expensive is the Progressivka Wind Farm in Mykolaiv region, worth UAH 4.4 billion.

We analyzed the projects in the Dream system and the status of their implementation. How realistic is the reflection and how possible is it to control the process of renewable energy reconstruction?

Money for renewables

Of the 165 active RES projects in the Dream system, only 23 (14%) have available financial coverage: more than 90% is recorded for 20 initiatives, and less than 10% for three more. Procurement was conducted for 11 projects, and contracts were concluded for 8 projects for a total of UAH 13.4 million.

Geographically, these are 4 projects from Vinnytsia and Kherson regions, 3 from Volyn and Lviv regions, and one each from Dnipro, Zakarpattia, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Odesa, Ternopil, Cherkasy, and Chernihiv regions.

The Lviv project for the reconstruction of the school's heating system using alternative fuels involved 10 procurements and 7 contracts worth UAH 2 million. The initiative has 26 million in available funding out of the 189 million needed.

Procurement for the construction of a ground-based solar power plant in Buchach, Ternopil region, for UAH 1.4 million was conducted in December 2024. According to the contract, the work was to be completed by the end of 2024, but the project is still in the Dream system.

Meanwhile, the installation of a solar power plant in Korosten, Zhytomyr region, has 92% of the 5.37 million UAH covered by the government, but only one procurement for UAH 2 thousand for the supply of tile adhesive was made in the Dream system, and the customer is the Bila Tserkva Higher Vocational School of Construction and Service.

At the same time, the project page contains photos of the installed solar power plant. There are no other details on the website, and its status remains in progress.

Projects in the South

IMAGE: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/

Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Kherson regions account for 39 RES projects (23% of the total in Ukraine), six of which have funding available. In total, 24 projects have indicative budgets, while the rest do not have information on the funds required for implementation. The most expensive of them is a wind farm in the village of Progressivka, Mykolaiv region, estimated at UAH 4.2 billion. However, UAH 717 thousand is needed to install a hybrid power generating unit in the village of Shabo, Odesa region. This is the cheapest project in the South of Ukraine.

There are also similar projects from the same community. For example, in Mykolaiv, a 12 MW wind farm was planned to be built in May 2024 at a cost of UAH 804 million, and in May 2025, a wind farm with the same capacity but with a budget of UAH 552 million.

What are the results?

From Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Kherson regions, 6 projects at the stage of implementation or initiation have financial support (100%). All funds are of grant origin.

Three projects in the Kherson region were created at the end of October 2025 and all relate to water supply - the installation of solar power plants at a well in the village of Stepanivka in the Kherson community(UAH1.96 million and 1.36 million) and the Chornobaiv community(1.2 million). Funds for all projects are to be provided by the Netherlands.

PHOTO: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/

In Voznesensk, Mykolaiv region, a project is underway to build a solar power plant at the Voznesensk Water Supply Utility worth more than UAH 7.5 million. The project was created in the Dream system in March 2024 and updated in October 2025.

The main share - UAH 6.3 million - was provided by the project "Promoting Energy Efficiency and Implementation of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive in Ukraine (FEER)", and the rest - by the Voznesensk City Council. At the same time, Dream has photos of a completed solar power plant, but the project is listed as underway. The media mentions the completion of a solar power plant with similar characteristics and the same donor in September 2024.

The procurement for the project was held in the summer of 2023, and the winner was Nikointerm. At that time, the contractor was selected only on the fourth attempt.

Since then, 6 amendments have been made to the contract, in particular, to extend the deadlines for the work. For example, in May 2024, it was determined that the work should be completed by July 2025. The latest amendments of October 2024 reduced the cost of the works to UAH 7.2 million. In Prozorro, the contract remains at the "Concluded" stage, not completed.

IMAGE: screenshot from the Dream system

A project worth UAH 7.26 million is being implemented in the Velyko Oleksandrivska community of Kherson Oblast to restore the water supply system, sewage pumping station, and install solar panels for drinking water supply. The community was occupied by Russian troops in March 2022 and liberated in October 2022.

The grant support was provided by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) under a cooperation agreement dated September 3, 2024. In September 2024, the project appeared on the Dream platform, and its estimated duration was 5 months. There is no information on the project's implementation in the system.

In response to a request for information, the Velyka Oleksandrivka Military Administration reported that the project was completed in April 2025 with the transfer of solar power plants to the community.

Prozorro has a procurement for the purchase and installation of a solar power plant in the community, funded by UNICEF. The purchase was made in November 2024, and the tender had been canceled three times before. The winner was the Association "Center for the Implementation of Energy Saving and Innovative Technologies" with a bid of UAH 5.8 million. Intent previously wrote about this procurement.

The contract was concluded on December 31, 2024 with a validity period until April 30, 2025. The agreement is currently in the process of execution on Prozorro.

In addition, pressure reducing valves for the water supply system and a frequency converter were purchased.

Communities can enter already created projects into the system to show a success story, and Dream did not help them raise money, but only demonstrates the fact of implementation.

For example, in Odesa region, this is a project in the Shabo village council. The center of the community is the village of Shabo on the banks of the Dniester Estuary. The Shabo winery is located here.

The installation of a hybrid power generating unit in the ASC costs UAH 717 thousand, and the funds were provided by the Swiss-Ukrainian project "E-Governance for Government Accountability and Community Participation (EGAP)". The project page contains a certificate of completion No. 246 dated December 28, 2023, and photos of solar panels. However, the project itself was created in the Dream system in January 2025 and has not been updated since then. In addition, in February 2024, the community's Facebook page reported the installation of a solar power plant at the ASC thanks to the Eastern Europe Foundation under the EGAP Program.

In response to an inquiry, the Shabiv village council reported that the project was completed in 2023, and all procurement was carried out by the EGAP project.

IMAGE: screenshot from the Dream system

Conclusions.

Southern Ukraine has the potential to develop renewable energy sources. Despite this, the data in the Dream system shows a gap: out of the required UAH 8 billion, only UAH 20 million is available. Donor funding is key - all projects have received international assistance. And the question arises: what would have been realized without their support?

At the same time, the system currently works more like an "archive" for renewable energy projects or an indicator of community activity. Probably, some data is not entered into the system, as the analyzed cases show. However, ambitious projects remain on paper and are waiting for funding, and we already have energy problems.

This article was developed within the framework of the project "Digging More Deeply: Climate Investigations in EaP Countries", supported by Journalismfund Europe and organized by n-ost e.V.

Костянтин Донченко