In Ukraine, three rural communities were identified to help residents to be trained on how to make solar collectors for heating water. The selected residents were from regions in Manevychi, Volynska oblast, Pogrebishche, Vinnytska oblast and Tatarbunary region, Odeska oblast.
During the workshop in October thirty participants studied the technology of designing and installing solar collectors, which were presented by International network “Women in Europe for a Common Future” (WECF) and the German company “Solar Partner Süd”. It should be worth noting that many of the project participants have already started building solar collectors for their own households and farms. The idea is to give residents in villages in Ukraine the skills to install solar collectors so that in the future they can install a similar system for their neighbors. Secondly, it was decided that the instillation of solar collectors could help solve issues concerning the access of hot water in villages.
“Against the background of rapidly increasing costs of gas and other traditional types of energy, the use of solar energy has become economically viable not only for individual households, but also for Ukraine as a country. Besides which solar energy is more eco-friendly to the environment.” – says Yury Urbansky from the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine.
“Other European countries, specifically the Nordic countries such as Norway and Sweden have shown how beneficial solar energy can be for a country. For example, Sweden, which is located 1,000 km to the north than Ukraine, can use solar energy eight months of the year. Ukraine could be able to use even more, this means that using solar energy in our country has even greater potential. In Romania for instance, 18% of energy is received from renewable sources and this is one of the closest neighbors. Unfortunately in Ukraine this figure is just 2.5% -3%!”- says Irina Vihristyuk from NGO “Vidrodjenya”.
The project known as “Switch to sun – live with comfort” is being implemented in Ukraine and Georgia. Such NGOs as National Ecological Centre of Ukraine, Ecoclub (Rivne) and Vidrodjenya (Tatarbunary) are implementing the project together with the International network “Women in Europe for a Common Future” (WECF) with financial support from the European Union. The project began in 2011 and is estimated to be completed in 2014.
More information about the technology and the project here:
http://www.wecf.eu/english/energy-climate/
Here some pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/ecoclub.rivne/WECF?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite