Ukraine passes renewable energy law cutting solar FiT

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has signed off a new law that will reduce feed-in tariffs for solar power plants commissioned from April 2013.

Under law 5485-VI, ground-based stations will be cut from UAH4.8 to UAH3.5 (US$0.43), while for roof or wall-mounted installations with a capacity of over 100kW the FiT will decline from UAH4.6 to UAH3.6 (US$0.44). Roof or wall-mounted installations with a capacity of less than 100kW will drop from UAH4.4 to UAH3.7 (US$0.45).

A feed-in tariff for households using solar modules with a capacity of up to 10kW will be introduced from 2014 at the level of UAH3.7.

Developer Activ Solar believes that the reduced FiT will have very little effect of projects already in development.

Markus Wölbitsch, Spokesman for Activ Solar said, "The lower tariff for solar ground-mounted installations will not be as attractive as before, but it will be offset by the decline of solar components prices that the market experienced in the last few months. 

"At this stage we don’t think that we need to completely abandon a concrete project. We are currently trying to evaluate the changes in investor’s appetite for solar projects in Ukraine after the changes in the green tariff have been introduced."

"The incentive of the green tariff in Ukraine was always to build as much as possible as early as possible. The tariff was always ending on 31 December 2029 and not in 20-25 years after completion of the project like in many mature solar markets," concluded Wölbitsch.

For further feed-in tariff details, click here.