Ukrainian energy innovations support program:

raising Ukraine's competitiveness through smart energy

Importance of energy innovations

Energy sector is a key sector of any economy. This simple truth was known well before energy stresses that plagued Ukraine during the last several years.

A sound energy industry is among the key drivers behind any competitive economy, which in turn is not possible without internal competition, and can not function without innovations. As it was shown in other economies key innovations happen in energy field, as their implementation create opportunities for growth in dozens of industries.

Only energy innovations can allow Ukraine to become competitive - economic crisis has provided all necessary proof of that. It has been clearly demonstrated that Ukrainian goods are increasingly less competitive in the world due to enormous amounts of energy used in production, driving costs up.

According to calculations of “Insight” project, Ukraine could save 2 billion US dollars per year or 5.5 million daily on energy alone. Ukraine has a multitude of investment opportunities for these savings.

Without new ideas and breakthrough energy projects, Ukrainian business is destined to lose external and internal markets, while the populace is forced to pay for low-quality energy supply and appalling utilities.

If the wind of change is blowing, one must build a windmill, not a shelter.

Chinese proverb

There is no doubt that energy efficiency is a major challenge for Ukrainian society. Still, every challenge brings about an opportunity.

Greencubator team perceives energy innovation as a tool to transform challenges into real economic opportunities - Ukraine desperately needs energy efficiency in all industries and spheres of life. Thus, we’re talking about an opportunity to create a market with 46 million consumers, more than 300 million square meters of residential spaces requiring thermal modernization, 460 cities with enormous energy infrastructure that requires renovation.

Innovations in energy efficiency will create a market that will allow not only to overcome the results of financial crisis, but also to move the economy to a principally new level by:

  • Creating thousands of new enterprises
  • Attracting a multitude of new investments – both Ukrainian and international
  • Creating hundreds of thousands of workplaces
  • Increasing budget incomes

Barriers

If there are so much profound problems that can be transformed in such opportunities, why Ukrainians haven't done it yet? The answer is simple - lack of culture. The fact that Ukrainians do not perceive that calculating energy costs is necessary has brought the country to:

  • Socialist-style state subsidization attitudes of ALL Ukrainian governments since 1991
  • Generations of people with "the state will give me energy for free" ingrained in their mind
  • Irritated unwillingness to pay real price for energy and to save it
  • Energy monopolies and multi-layered corruption in all energy spheres
  • Enormous overregulation of energy market

What do we propose...

… and have already started to take action - learn about our projects on the "projects" page.

We suggest removing the barriers mentioned above using a set of public communications tools. One can righteously say that there has been enough of talking, how can this be solved with more talks?

The situation can be changed by common actions of a community that realizes its goal and understands methods and approaches needed to achieve them. Our projects are aimed at creation of such communities by communication means. For example, in "Energy-Efficient Universities" series of conferences our goal is to create a community of universities, suppliers of energy-efficient solutions and financial institutions with a goal of lowering universities’ energy consumption in thus leaving money on what they should be providing - education.

With whom we work

We work with energy efficiency “points of growth”, which will provide positive examples for the whole Ukraine. These points include NGOs, businesses, media and local communities as well as educational institutions. Greencubator team thinks that these pioneers` task is to teach whole society and the state to become energy-efficient. To achieve this, we need to unite their efforts and communicate the idea of following their example to the Ukrainian society.

We are glad to we have many partners in creating and supporting these visionaries: their experience, knowledge and talents make every participant of this interaction stronger.

Who we are

You can learn more about members of our team at the "Team" page. When somebody asks us about our affiliation, we calmly reply that we belong to ourselves and Ukraine. We do not depend on oligarchic capitals or state budgets.