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Notus has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ukraine’s environmental protection and natural resources ministry and transmission system operator NPC Ukrenergo for the project.
Initial feasibility analysis suggests 1GW of wind power could be developed there, Notus stated, though has not confirmed whether this will be built as one project or split between smaller projects. If this capacity is built as a single project, it would rank among Europe’s largest onshore wind farms.
The partners have agreed to examine how the project could be implemented, determine the condition of the existing grid infrastructure, and identify potentially suitable areas based on radiation and environmental assessments.
Notus believes that by upgrading the old power plant infrastructure, it could deliver power directly to the capital city of Kiev 150km away. It added that because the exclusion zone was abandoned, wind power project development there poses little risk of conflict from a social and ecological perspective.
Hannes Helm, managing director of Notus’ Ukrainian project development arm Energo Ukrainia, said: “We want to make a contribution to the reconstruction and transformation of the Ukrainian energy supply.
“A wind farm of this size would make a substantial contribution to the expansion of renewable energies in Ukraine and strengthen the independence and decentralisation of the Ukrainian energy supply.”
The former Soviet Union set up an exclusion zone with a 30km radius around the Chernobyl nuclear plant after the explosion of a reactor in April 1986, though this zone has since been greatly expanded.
Russian forces captured the area during their invasion of Ukraine, but later abandoned it.
Ukraine’s deputy ecology minister Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi said: “Even before the full-scale invasion, we had strategic plans to transform the Chernobyl zone into a recovery zone. The war hasn’t changed them, but temporarily suspended [them].”
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