Since 2022, Ukraine's power system has been living in a mode no other European country has known. Strikes on power plants and substations changed the very idea of where electricity should come from.
A big system is a big target
Soviet-era energy was built around large facilities: huge thermal, hydro and nuclear plants, with power spreading across the country through transmission lines. In peacetime this is efficient. In war, every such plant and every key substation becomes a target, and damage to one site can switch off whole regions.
Ukrainians learned to live by outage schedules, work by candlelight and charge phones at resilience points. But the real answer to this threat is not to endure it but to change the architecture of the energy system itself.
Thousands of small plants instead of a few big ones
Distributed generation means energy is produced where it is used: on the roofs of homes, hospitals, schools and businesses. Destroying thousands of small solar plants spread across the country is practically impossible. Even when the grid fails, a house with its own plant and storage keeps its lights on.
That is why community energy independence today is not a trend or green fashion. It decides whether a hospital operating theatre keeps working, whether there is water in the taps and whether a school can continue its lessons.
What has already changed
In recent years, thousands of Ukrainian families and companies have installed their own solar plants and storage. International partners fund plants for hospitals and critical infrastructure. Our group works in this direction too: under the Ray of Hope initiative, hospitals in Odesa, Khmelnytskyi, Bila Tserkva and Slavutych received power.
What each of us can do
Every rooftop plant means a little less load on the grid at peak hours and a little more resilience for the whole system. When your home runs on the sun, grid power goes to those who need it more. A country's energy independence is made of the energy independence of each of us.