Kyiv Built 40 MW of Cogeneration — But the City Needs 173 MW, and It Lacks 47 Billion for Construction
KYMA reports progress in winter preparations: new cogeneration facilities with strike protection and the first diesel complex for water supply. However, the city's own figures show that what has been built is enough to cover only one-sixth of actual demand.
By Tetiana Suchkova-Ladik
May 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Acting First Deputy Chairman of Kyiv City State Administration Petro Panteleyev announced: Kyiv has built distributed cogeneration facilities with a total capacity of approximately 40 MW — all equipped with second-level protection. In parallel, the first diesel power complex with a capacity of 5 MW for water supply systems has been introduced. Additional projects totaling over 130 MW are in the active phase.
This is real technical progress. But it becomes different when placed alongside another figure from the same city plan.
One-sixth of what is needed
In March 2026, the Kyiv City State Administration presented the open part of the energy resilience plan at an NSDC session. The total need for distributed power generation for the municipal sector is 172.95 MW. At that time, the available 28.5 MW covered only 16.5% of the need.
Even accounting for the already introduced 40 MW — coverage amounts to approximately 23%. The plan provides for constructing the remainder: 107 MW by September 1, 2026, and an additional 32.2 MW by October 1. The problem is financial.
"It is impossible to meet all of Kyiv's needs with cogeneration. We are talking about powering infrastructure, not the population".
Petro Panteleyev, Acting First Deputy Chairman of Kyiv City State Administration
47 billion hryvnias deficit
The total budget for the capital's preparation plan for the 2026–2027 heating season is 67.5 billion hryvnias. Available funding is only 20.4 billion. The deficit exceeds 47 billion hryvnias. According to Panteleyev, the allocated 10 billion hryvnias in the budget are insufficient, and the city is already preparing a budget revision.
For the cogeneration direction specifically: need — 7.3 billion hryvnias, allocated — 5.9 billion, meaning a shortfall of 1.4 billion. This is a smaller gap than across the entire plan, but the deadlines — September and October — leave no time for slow decisions.
Why "second-level protection" is not a detail
Last winter, all three of Kyiv's major thermal power plants suffered strikes. In January–February 2026, the energy supply deficit in the capital reached 35–40%. This is why new cogeneration facilities are now being built with physical protection — a fundamental shift in approach compared to the pre-war logic of "build and see what happens".
Distributed generation — small facilities at various points throughout the city instead of a few large hubs — also reduces the risk that a single strike will disable a significant portion of capacity at once.
- 40 MW — built now, all with second-level protection
- 130+ MW — in active construction phase
- 173 MW — total need of the municipal sector
- 47 billion hryvnias — financial deficit of the entire preparation plan
The technical logic of the plan appears consistent. The financial logic — not yet. If by the end of May the city does not announce where it will cover the 47 billion hryvnias deficit, the September deadline will become a target without resources behind it.
