€11.2 million loan to improve energy efficiency

The EBRD is providing a €11.2 million loan to CherkasyTeploKomunEnergo (CTKE), the municipally-owned district heating company of the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy.

The finance will be used for investments aimed at improving the energy efficiency of the local district heating network. After years of under investment and lack of maintenance, heating systems in Ukraine are suffering high levels of distribution losses. As the main objective of the project will be to achieve significant energy savings, it will both contribute to a reduction of greenhouse emissions and improve the financial and operating performance of the Company.

Improvements in the network are also particularly urgent at a time when the price for gas has been rising steeply and is expected to continue to grow until it reaches the level paid by Western and central European countries. The project will begin introducing meters to measure the actual consumption of heat by customers and collect payments on this basis. Such a system will provide incentives for customers to invest in energy saving technologies in their homes and businesses.

Cherkasy is a city of almost 300,000 people in central Ukraine, about 200 kilometres south of the capital Kiev. CTKE serves about half the city’s population with heat and hot water.

Henry Russell, EBRD Director for Municipal Environment and Infrastructure, said the loan will address one of the most pressing needs of Ukraine, which is the improvement of the country’s energy efficiency. The project in Cherkasy is expected to provide a model for solving this problem which is both effective and fair and recognises the difficult social circumstances faced by the population.

The loan is the EBRD’s first municipal district heating project in Ukraine without a sovereign guarantee. The loan will be made directly to CTKE with a financial guarantee from the City of Cherkasy. Technical cooperation support has been provided by Sweden, Taiwan and the United Kingdom to help the company implement the project and to support its corporate development into an efficient and sustainable operating company providing high quality heating services to the citizens of Cherkasy.