The darkest winter: a hospital in Kirovohrad region secures power without outages
- energyactua
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
The winter Ukraine is living through today has become one of the most severe in recent history, especially for the energy sector. Since October 2025, there has not been a single day when Ukraine’s energy system has not been under attack by Russia. Large-scale and targeted strikes on power generation facilities, substations, and transmission networks have led to widespread emergency outages of electricity, heating, and water across the country. In some regions, electricity and other essential services have been unavailable for 20 to 40 hours at a time and in certain areas, this situation persists even now.
Under these conditions, critical infrastructure remains particularly vulnerable, above all, medical facilities, where electricity is not a matter of comfort, but of continuity of care and the preservation of life. The attacks in January 2026 placed even the most protected consumers at risk of power disruptions, including hospitals that operate under constant strain.
In January 2026, The Energy Act for Ukraine Foundation, a Ukrainian charity organisation, installed a hybrid solar power station at one of the key medical facilities in the Kirovohrad region. The goal is to ensure the hospital can operate continuously, regardless of the condition of the centralised power grid or the consequences of hostile attacks.
The facility’s core focus is cardiology - a field where, during surgery, treatment, recovery, and emergency care, decisions are measured in minutes and seconds. Any loss of power or even a brief switch to generator supply can be critical and potentially fatal.
This project is funded through the Ukraine Partnership Facility (UPF). UPF is a programme from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency commissioned by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The partnership is lead by De Boomgaard Foundation, in partnership with Solarge, Ukrainian-Netherlands Charitable Foundation Lifeline, and the Energy Act for Ukraine Foundation.
A hospital that cannot afford to stop
The medical centre is one of the leading healthcare institutions in the region, providing highly specialised care to patients with cardiovascular diseases. Each year, around 36,000 patients receive treatment here, for all of them the uninterrupted operation of medical equipment is vital.
During blackouts, the hospital faced the risk of disruptions to systems responsible for life-saving patient monitoring, the functioning of operating theatres, intensive care units, and emergency wards. Even short-term power losses could jeopardise laboratory operations and clinical departments, where the speed of medical decision-making directly affects patient outcomes.
A technical solution for the hospital’s energy resilience
The installed solar power station has a capacity of 30 kW and operates as a hybrid system, combining on-site solar generation with a high-capacity energy storage system of 204.8 kWh. This enables the hospital to function autonomously during emergency, аварійні, and unexpected outages, supplying electricity to critical departments for 3–4 hours.
The expected annual useful generation is 40,285 kWh, allowing the facility to significantly reduce its dependence on centralised electricity supply and save approximately UAH 350,000 per year on electricity costs. In the long term, the project also delivers a substantial environmental benefit: over 25 years of operation, the solar power station will prevent 423 tonnes of CO₂ emissions, combining energy resilience with responsibility towards the environment.
Our solar power stations are not about kilowatts
“Our solar power stations are not about kilowatts — they are about lives. For a cardiology centre, electricity means uninterrupted monitoring, stable equipment operation, and the ability for doctors to save lives even during the most severe blackouts. In a country living under constant attack, the energy independence of hospitals becomes part of national security,” says Yuliana Onishchuk, CEO and Founder of the Energy Act for Ukraine Foundation.
