Case Study
Sustainability of Ukrainian Energy
System
Main Problems

Sustainable Development
Scheme
Environmental Protection
Social Development Economic development

Social Aspect
n Former Soviet Union citizen way of
thinking and behavior:
¡ Thinking and acting locally in time and
space horizon;
¡ “It’s not mine, so I don’t care about it”;

Reasoning
n Huge
environmental
resources
n Inexhaustible
fossil fuel
resources for
free

Reasoning
n Man being a part
of state production
machine

Social Aspect
n Ukrainian society doesn’t have complete
understanding that energy and heat have
qualitative and quantitative measures and that
they are goods;
n Persons in charge of taking decisions are afraid
of innovations and changes, they care only
about their own position, not about the branch
they are responsible for;
n Ukrainian people mostly don’t feel civil
responsibility (if one doesn’t have a water meter
he can just leave the tap turned on and let the
water run for no particular reason);

Economical Aspects
n Getting resources and producing
waste for free;
n Not counting amount of resources we
use …
n … and waste;
n Short-term planning;
n Absence of competitive energy market
and appropriate market infrastructure;

Economical Aspects
n Politization of energetic sphere and
scramble for this sphere between
political parties, financial and industrial
groups and criminals;
n “manual management” of the energy
market;

Environmental Protection
n Low level of environmental safety of fuel and
energy complex of Ukraine (it produces 45%
of atmosphere pollution, 25% of waste
water, 26% of solid waste, 65% of
greenhouse effect gasses);
n Absence of control and penalties for
environmental pollution and producing
waste;

Sustainable Energy System
Production
Transfer Consumption

Production of Energy
n High level of capital assets ageing in fuel and
energy complex, which causes energy
resources overconsumption and raises the
possibility of technological disasters;
n Destruction of R&D potential in fuel and energy
complex and low innovative activity of power
concerns;
n Shadow economy in fuel and energy complex,
shadow redistribution of ownership rights and
resources turnover;

Production of Energy
n Critical dependence of fuel and energy
complex on resources imported from one
country (Russia);
n Low usage of renewable resources and
alternative power engineering (for example
use of attendant gas in coal mines or
thermal waters in Crimea and Carpathians,
which are at 1-2 km drilling depth and have
a temperature around 110 C);

Transfer of Energy
n Huge energy losses due to
depreciated transmission and
distribution channels;
n Non-optimal ratio of decentralized and
centralized electro generating
capacities (7% to 93%);

Consumption of Energy
n Extremely high power-consuming of gross
domestic product (0.89 kg of standard fuel
per 1$ of product);
n Great portion of natural gas in fuel and
energy balance, 2/3 of natural gas is utilized
by metallurgy and chemical industry;
n Cheapness of energy for the industry and
municipal sector;

Consumption of Energy
n Lack of control for consumed
resources (only 1/3 of apartments in
Ukraine are equipped with heat and
hot water meters);
n Non-payments or barter transactions
for consumed energy;

Conclusion
Ukrainian Energy System suffers from a
diversity of social, economical, ecological,
technological and political problems, so we
cannot treat it as a sustainable system.
Realizing and solving them can make Energy
System of Ukraine effective and
sustainable.