Picture an evening in Kharkiv or Sumy: the sun sets, kettles switch on, air conditioners and factory lines fire up — and this very evening peak hour has, for two years running, remained the most vulnerable point of a power grid being methodically hit by missiles. This summer the state responded to that vulnerability not with another promise, but with a competition to build new generation capacity — and its scale is unlike anything Ukraine has seen before.
For the construction industry, local authorities and everyone working with state tenders, this is not just energy news. It is a signal: over the next two years, new industrial facilities worth billions of hryvnias in investment will be built in seven regions — meaning design work, contractors, materials logistics and jobs for dozens of construction teams.
The facts
- On 9 July 2026, a new stage began in the competition to build over 1.5 GW of new highly manoeuvrable gas-fired generation capacity — according to First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal, this is the largest competition for generation capacity construction in Ukraine’s history as an independent state.
- On 16 June, the Cabinet of Ministers had already expanded the competition’s scope from 1,322 MW to 1,505 MW, adding a separate 183 MW lot for Dnipropetrovsk region to back up the Dnipro power hub.
- The capacity was distributed across seven regions: Kyiv and Cherkasy regions — 250 MW; Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions — 872 MW combined; Dnipropetrovsk region — 283 MW; Odesa region — 100 MW.
- Investors have 20 days from the start of the competition to submit comments and proposals on the terms; a separate meeting between the competition committee and potential participants is scheduled for 29 July.
- The incentive for investors is a capacity-availability payment — up to €0.2792 per 1 kWh for five years after a facility is commissioned.
- The government expects all new capacity to be commissioned by the end of 2027.
- Ukrenergo board chairman Vitaliy Zaichenko said investor interest in the competition is already noticeable, despite the ambitious scale of the task.
Terms of the competition to build new generation
The main difference between this stage and previous ones is precision targeting. The lots are tied not to abstract megawatts, but to specific power-deficit hubs — the ones most vulnerable to shelling and frontline proximity. Only new units that have never operated before can take part — meaning this is not about modernising old capacity, but building from scratch: foundations, turbine halls, grid connections.
What this changes for energy and the construction industry
This is not a one-off subsidy but a market instrument: the state fixes a tariff for five years and shifts the construction risk onto private investors, keeping for itself the role of setting the terms rather than being the sole executor. For the regions, this means new industrial sites and contracts for years ahead; for the power grid, it means a capacity reserve exactly during those evening hours when the network needs backup the most.
Every such facility is, first and foremost, a construction project: tenders for design, equipment procurement, and building the structures themselves. And while some talk about gigawatts, others are already counting cubic metres of concrete and turbine delivery times — that is how a government decision on paper turns into real construction work for the next two years.
Source: LIGA.net
