Commission to accept bids for 1.5 GW generation tender until evening of Oct 8
Bids for a tender to build 1.5 GW of new generating capacity in Ukraine's power-deficient regions will be accepted through Oct 8 inclusive.
The commission overseeing the tender made the decision at a meeting on Thursday, which was livestreamed.
Under the decision, the deadline for accepting competitive proposals from potential participants is set at 5:00 p.m. on Oct 8, 2026.
The commission also updated the tender documentation, previously posted on Ukrenergo's website in June, based on feedback and comments from potential participants.
"The final version of the document now includes a clear deadline for accepting bids, more detailed requirements for the documents submitted by potential participants, a sample bid proposal form, a mechanism for transferring rights and obligations from the tender winner to third parties, and a clarified requirement that potential participants have no outstanding debt to Ukrenergo," the commission said on Ukrenergo's Telegram channel.
As previously reported, Ukrenergo board chairman Vitaliy Zaichenko said he expects strong investor interest in the tender, calling it the largest competition for building new generating capacity in Ukraine's history.
He said closing the full 1.5 GW "is probably very ambitious, but there will definitely be interest in the tender — we're already feeling it."
Zaichenko said Ukrenergo is counting primarily on Ukrainian investors and is doing everything it can to attract them, adding that the company expects the most interest in peak and semi-peak gas generation.
Under the 1.5 GW tender, Kyiv and Cherkasy regions receive a quota of 250 MW, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions together 872 MW, Dnipropetrovsk region 283 MW, and Odesa region 100 MW.
Ukrenergo has noted that each energy facility must have a minimum operating life of 20 years or 100,000 hours, and that new power units must meet technical requirements designed to simplify balancing of Ukraine's unified energy system. Facility capacity must be at least 10 MW.
The commission overseeing the 1.5 GW tender is headed by First Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov.
First Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Denys Shmyhal has said the government expects all capacity planned under the tender's second stage to be commissioned by the end of 2027.
The combined capacity of business-guaranteed projects from the tender's first stage, which concluded at the end of last year, totals 78.1 MW. Under its rules, Ukrenergo was to compensate capital investment in building such facilities. For the second stage, the rules have been updated: winners will receive support through a market premium mechanism in cases where electricity prices during morning and evening peak-load hours fall below the level set in the tender — up to 27.92 euro cents per kWh.
Ukrenergo board member Ivan Yuryk has explained that the support period will be seven hours a day in the autumn-winter period and five hours in the spring-summer period, saying this is meant to motivate investors to operate during the hours of the day when additional capacity is most needed by the power system.
He added that the company's calculations show a three-year payback period for investors, but given the requirement for new facilities to install second-level protection, the guaranteed price support period for producers is set at five years.
Yuryk noted that one important condition of the tender is that it allows participation by projects that were launched earlier and are now at the design stage or already under construction, which should significantly speed up the commissioning of new generating capacity. Participants are given 20 months after winners are announced to complete this.