Soon, a modern, more energy-efficient outpatient clinic will appear in the village of Horenka of the Hostomel community. After the reconstruction of the building damaged by Russian aggression, its electricity will be partially supplied by solar panels, and the main source of heating will be an energy-efficient heat pump. Thus, the outpatient clinic will become more independent from external networks and due to renewable energy sources will be able to have electricity and heating even in the current conditions of unstable supply.
According to preliminary calculations, a hybrid solar plant can cover up to 60 %* of consumed electricity per year. The water- and soil-based heat pump will reduce heating bills by 80 %. It is expected that all the necessary equipment will be installed by the end of 2022 and it will be fully operational in January 2023.
The installation of the heat pump system has already begun. It will use the heat of the ground to transfer it to the heating system. For this, seven wells with a depth of 65 meters will be drilled. The current gas heating system will also be retained as a backup heating supply.
‘This outpatient clinic is not just a project that will help residents of Horenka to have more reliable access to medicine, even in constant power outages. This is an example of how every hospital, school, kindergarten, and, ideally, every house should be rebuilt. Investing time and money in the restoring the destroyed, we should not return everything to the way it was, but introduce the most modern technologies. This is not only a matter of reducing the impact on the environment but also of reliability of supply and energy independence of both communities and the country,’ comments Kostiantyn Krynytskyi, Head of the Energy Department of NGO Ecoaction, one of the co-organizers of the project.
The gradual abandonment of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — is necessary to reduce dangerous emissions into the air from their burning and to slow down the climate crisis. The systematic replacement of dirty fuel with renewable energy will help the country become less dependent on the import of these resources. And the implementation of small distributed generation — i.e., such small isolated plants as in Horenka — also makes individual communities energy independent, enabling them to independently provide for their own needs and save money.
The project of green reconstruction of the outpatient clinic is a pilot project. It is planned to attract funds for similar projects in the future. It was initiated by the international environmental organization Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe as part of the “Greening the reconstruction of Ukraine by building city level partnerships” project and implemented in cooperation with NGOs Ecoaction, Ecoclub, and Charitable Foundation Victory of Ukraine with the assistance of the Hostomel military administration and the Hostomel primary health care centre.
*60 % is an approximate calculation taking into account the annual electricity consumption of the outpatient clinic and the additional load of the heat pump during the heating period.
For more information please contact:
Oleksandra Khmarna, okh@ecoact.org.ua
This article was prepared in the framework of the project “Closing the loop: a just energy transition designed by capitals and regions” with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of NGO Ecoaction and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
