The impact of the war on the Ukrainian biogas sector – September 2024

The impact of the war on the Ukrainian biogas sector. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, 17 GW of Ukrainian power generation remained occupied. Starting from March 2024, another 9 GW were damaged or completely destroyed on the controlled territory of Ukraine including:
• 90% of coal and gas power plants,
• 70% of wind farms,
• 50% of hydropower plants,
• 30% of solar PV plants,
• 5% of biogas and biomass plants.

Thus, bioenergy has demonstrated the highest resistance to military invasion compared to other types of conventional and renewable energy facilities due to its fundamental decentralization and relatively uniform distribution across the country.
During the last two years before the war, the biogas sector of Ukraine demonstrated a steady growth in electricity production. Thus, electricity production from biogas reached 553.2 GWh in 2021. Just before the war, in December 2021 and January 2022, monthly biogas based electricity production reached maximum value at the level of 53.6 and 55.0 GWh, respectively.

After the start of the full-scale military invasion, a decline in monthly electricity production to below 40 GWh was observed for three months, followed by stabilization of production until the end of 2022. Because of hostilities, biogas production was cancelled at least two agricultural biogas plants in the eastern and southern regions of the country as well as two landfill gas recovery systems at MSW landfills. The total loss of installed electrical capacity was approximately from 5 to 7 MW. Despite no additional biogas capacity being installed in 2023, electricity production demonstrated positive dynamics, exceeding pre-war production levels by 5% in 2023.

In 2024, the government of Ukraine approved the Strategy for Development of Distributed Generation in Ukraine with a target to build up to 1000 MW of distributed generation in 2024, including using renewable energy, and additionally 4000 MW in 2025. Currently, the development of decentralized generation, including biogas and biomethane plants, is relevant.