Exclusive visit and tour of the Energy Farm in Borshchiv

The ambassador of Norway Mr. Ole Terje Horpestad and Councellor for Development and Cooperation in Ukraine Mr. Petter Bauck visited the Energy Farm in Borshchiv May 29th, where they discussed with representatives of EFU how the centre’s activities are coordinating with the Oblast Energy Strategy and the centres further tasks and perspectives. The representatives from the embassy got a full tour of the facilites of the new center. The program is attached. The EFU team received positive feedback from the visitors who said they had a better understanding of the project goals. Petter Bauck is very interested in our cooperation with the Agro College and the teaching plans for the students and he would like to see som further progress (and so are we!).

Ternopil Oblast Council’s web page also reported on the visit on their web page.

"The use of renewable energy sources is the basis of energy-saving technologies and solution of environmental problems"

The head of [Ternopil] Oblast Council, Victor Ovcharuk, made this statement during the presentation of the project “Development of the Centre for Bioenergy and Management of Local Energy Supply”. The project is implemented in Borshchiv under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway. The Norwegian Ambassador to Ukraine Ole Terje Horpestad met with representatives of Ternopil oblast and Borshchiv regional authorities as well as local entrepreneurs.

“The world is actively using renewable energy, biofuels, solar and wind power, etc. The use of plant-based biomass is important, also in the future for Ternopil Oblast and, no doubt, it can replace expensive gas. More and more municipal enterprises in the Oblast are increasingly moving to solid fuel. I am convinced that the successful implementation of this project in Borshchiv will be a good example for other regions”, said Victor Ovcharuk.

The aim of project being implemented in Borshchiv is to increase the production and use of bioenergy and other renewable energy, efficient infrastructure development plan for energy security of Western Ukraine, limiting energy monopoly of traditional technologies of energy production and competitive market prices formation on energy. In addition the project provides for the establishment of nurseries of bioenergy crops on reserve lands of Borshchiv territorial community and the development of energy plans to replace fossil fuels and bioenergy supplies to several municipal heat exchange systems in the territorial communities, region and Oblast centres in Western Ukraine.

The Oblast authority and Honorable guests also had a meeting with representatives of Borshchiv territorial community and the Agro-technical college which is the base of the project “Development of centre for bioenergy and management of local energy supply”. “Norway is one of the countries that are constantly increasing their production and use of bioenergy. It is ready to share its experience with Ukraine”, - said the Norwegian Ambassador to Ukraine.