Public consultations short-circuited for major Ukrainian power project, EBRD urged to stand up for communities and the environment

October 13, 2009

A major power transmission project in Ukraine that seeks a EUR 175 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to facilitate the export of electricity from Europe's biggest nuclear power plant across protected nature sites in the south of Ukraine is violating the EBRD's procedures on public consultations, according to Bankwatch member group National Ecological Centre of Ukraine (NECU).

On a recent fact-finding mission to the region, NECU representatives uncovered a highly haphazard approach from the project promoter Ukrenergo - Ukraine's national power company - to a public consultation process already supposedly underway for two months, with a further two months still to run.

Yury Urbansky, Bankwatch's national coordinator in Ukraine, said: "In several key locations in the region where these power lines will pass, we found big gaps in the availability of environmental impact documentation concerning the project. A major project like this one that seeks EBRD support is supposed to fulfill the bank's public disclosure requirements to the full. Yet not only did we arrive at several sites where the relevant documentation was incomplete but we also faced active resistance from local officials unwilling to provide at least some of the required materials."

A NECU letter to the EBRD details these public consultation failings from Ukrenergo and urges the bank to ensure the restarting of the process in line with its requirements. [1] Public hearings about the project are scheduled to take place at the end of this month.

Ukrenergo hopes to receive this EBRD loan to realise a 750 kV power line that will run between the Zaporizka nuclear power plant (NPP) and the Kakhovka substation. The main goal of this project, according to NECU, is outlined in Ukraine's controversial energy strategy up to 2030, namely to deliver the export of domestically produced electric power abroad and to expand Zaporizkaya NPP from 6 to 8 power units.

Yury Urbansky continued: “There is a lot at stake with this project, including for local communities and the Lower Dnieper National Park, a reserve rich in biodiversity that is set to become a protected area. Public consultations on these high voltage power lines, with all the available project impact documentation, are absolutely vital. Ukrenergo has been talking up its prospects of securing the EBRD financing by the end of the year, but it has embarked on a reckless path to meet this timetable. The EBRD must insist on its standards being respected, and should take note of the corners already being cut by its potential client.”