The first solar power plant in Ivano-Frankivsk region – Bohorodchany 1 (Stari Bohorodchany) was launched on Monday.

Director of Bohorodchany 1 Solar Power Plant LLC, Maksym Kozitsky, told reporters that the total cost of the project came to UAH 38 million. Individual residents are investors in the project. The payback period of the project is six or seven years.

He said that the plant would generate around 3 million kilowatts of power a year, which will be transmitted to the Ukrainian power grid.

Kozitsky said that the construction of the plant started in October 2012 and it was finished by April 1, 2013. Private enterprise Project-Bud (Vinnytsia) designed the project. The solar power plant has over 12,000 PV modules made in the Czech Republic, which are placed on a land plot of around six hectares.

Bohorodchany 1 Solar Power Plant LLC was registered in March 2013 for the operation of the plant. Participants of the company are individual residents.

As reported, Eco-Optima built Bohorodchany 1 solar power plant.

Earlier the company built the Sambir solar power plant, with the capacity of 3.116 MW.

Eco-Optima is also building a wind power plant with a capacity of 15 MW in Stary Sambir district (Lviv region). Under this project, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) organized debt financing in the amount of EUR 13.3 million.

The founder of Eco-Optima is businessman Zynoviy Kozytsky.

In the past two years, alternative energy in Ukraine has been developing more intensively than traditional power generation. As of the beginning of April 2013, the total number of companies that operate power plants using renewable sources of energy and selling electricity at a feed-in tariff grew to 86, while the number of such power facilities rose to 139, including 43 solar power plants.