{"id":1420,"date":"2026-05-25T13:21:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T13:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kolvi.com\/?p=1420"},"modified":"2026-06-15T10:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T10:50:18","slug":"vid-zrizanyh-derev-do-perebudovy-infrastruktury-yaki-pereshkody-stoyat-na-shlyahu-do-teployi-zymy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kolvi.com\/en\/vid-zrizanyh-derev-do-perebudovy-infrastruktury-yaki-pereshkody-stoyat-na-shlyahu-do-teployi-zymy\/","title":{"rendered":"From Felled Trees to Infrastructure Overhaul: What Obstacles Stand in the Way of a Warm Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

The winter of 2025\u20132026 vividly demonstrated the scale of the overhaul of the heat supply system that needs to be carried out in preparation for the next heating season amid ongoing hostilities and the enemy's targeting of critical infrastructure and life support systems. As early as the beginning of March, resilience plans were approved for every Ukrainian region and regional center. And in May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally set the task of implementing all the plans before the start of the heating season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the speed of decision-making, the practice of turning ideas into real solutions is no easy task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a special project by Ekonomichna Pravda and Kolvi, we explain the state of preparation for the next winter, the problems facing the regions, and the industry's proposals that could prove lifesaving during emergency situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Large Combined Heat and Power Plants to Small Boiler Houses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Centralized heat supply is a legacy that Ukraine inherited from Soviet times. With the start of the full-scale war, this approach became a problem, since large heat generation facilities became some of the enemy's priority targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Instead of one large combined heat and power plant, you need to build many small ones that can provide heat in different districts of the city,\" says Chief Project Engineer Volodymyr Sharapov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are countless advantages here. Modern equipment is installed, aimed at producing thermal energy with an efficiency of no less than 96% and a high degree of environmental safety, and with reduced heat carrier temperature losses during delivery to consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pictured: Mykola Koval, Lead Electrical Engineer, demonstrates a modern facility in Mykolaiv<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"We have a boiler house that was delivered to the site in 7 modules. At the production facility everything is assembled, then it is taken apart, arrives, and is assembled on site. The electrical installation is done in place. This boiler house has three boilers, that is, three burners. They can work either in turns or all three at once. If there are severe frosts outside, all three boilers operate. If one boiler is enough, then one operates. This way we save both gas and electricity. The boiler house maintains the temperature automatically, depending on the temperature outside. It gets colder \u2014 it increases its capacity,\" recounts Lead Electrical Engineer Mykola Koval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in real life, to implement even one such project, you need to solve a whole host of related tasks involving specialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before the stage of manufacturing, delivery, and installation of the boiler house, you need to determine the location and prepare all the necessary infrastructure: gas, heat, and electricity networks, water supply, sewerage, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"We are faced with a situation where there is a large energy load at the site, but no possibility of installing a boiler house \u2014 since there is already development in the cities. So it is necessary to find solutions that allow laying networks in this dense development or making tie-ins and reconnecting other facilities. To place a block-modular boiler house, you sometimes have to cut down trees, remove garages, and negotiate with people,\" explains Volodymyr Sharapov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Design Project Is the Basis for Any Plan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most of the existing issues related to installing a boiler house need to be resolved even before the stage of its production. The basis in this case is the design stage, which is the foundation for carrying out regional energy resilience plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"From the country's leadership, a task came down to heat supply organizations to draw up a resilience plan. Everyone heard this task and wants to carry it out as quickly as possible. But it doesn't happen that a task comes in and it's immediately completed. You need to start by bringing in, on a contractual basis, a design organization, which, traveling to the site, studies the need, the network and development schemes, looks at what equipment is already there, what needs to be replaced, and so on. It is the client who concludes this contract. It is very important that going forward there is cooperation between the designer and the manufacturer, because you can design anything, but in reality it may turn out that manufacturing such a thing is simply impossible,\" recounts Oleh Vaisburd, Head of EUROTERM TECHNOLOGY LLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, there can be many obstacles on the way to completing the task: the impossibility of placing the facility due to excessive proximity to the housing stock or other structures, limitations of gas, electricity, and heat networks, and so on. So without an initial design project that takes these aspects into account, it is simply impossible to move forward \u2014 and that is time, of which there is now little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conditions where high output is needed but there is a shortage of free space, a good solution has been the installation of attached boiler houses. Such facilities are placed next to already existing central heating points. Although this requires solving additional tasks related to the need to think through the placement of equipment and the possibilities for maneuvering. Kolvi can supply block-modular boiler houses with a capacity of 1 to 24 MW, which can be assembled in various configurations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But what should be done when projects, including complex ones, need to be developed not for a single city, but for all the regions of Ukraine? Will there be enough capacity for this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Will It Be Possible to Carry Out What Has Been Planned<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The task from the state is to implement the energy resilience plans by winter. In reality, there are only 3\u20134 months during which both the design project and the work itself must be completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just to launch the process, it is necessary to hold tenders, find contractors, conclude agreements with them, and find financing. And only after this, according to Oleh Vaisburd, does the process of ordering and manufacturing the equipment begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Is it possible to do everything in 3 or 4 months? Theoretically it is possible, if everything is already prepared and all that's needed is to carry out the work on site. But choosing a contractor, financing, ordering the equipment, assembling everything in the container, delivering the container, connecting to the existing utilities \u2014 if they already exist and don't need to be laid \u2014 realistically that's half a year at a minimum. The task concerns the territory of the entire country; every locality will have different needs, and accordingly all the boiler houses will be different too,\" says Oleh Vaisburd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Chief Engineer Maksym Chikinieiev, about 70% of a block-modular boiler house consists of imported components. Purchasing such equipment in advance is objectively impossible due to its enormous variability and the individual needs of each client and their project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Conceivably, there could be a million different types of those very burners. And we don't know exactly what kind of boiler house we will be making in a month or in three months. How do you guess what exactly will be needed? No supplier, especially in wartime conditions, will keep equipment in stock,\" notes Maksym Chikinieiev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scenarios for emergency situations are being proposed. The simplest could be the standardization and interchangeability of boiler house modules, at least within a single region. Which, in the case of situations like those that occurred last winter, can be temporarily dismantled in one place and installed in another within a few hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A boiler house is made up of a construction set of identical blocks. And if destruction or a boiler house failure occurs, there must be the ability to replace the equipment within a few hours. This is our initiative, the one we are talking about. In that case, cities can help each other out. For example, if Kyiv sees that they have an unloaded boiler house, they can remove their blocks and give them to another city that has an emergency situation while the process of manufacturing the equipment is underway. A boiler with a capacity of 4 MW is the benchmark for a facility that can be transported, and for the assembly of a higher-capacity boiler house that will be a multiple of four \u2014 8, 12, 16, and so on,\" notes Oleksandr Kroshka, board member of Kolvi, a manufacturer of heat-generating equipment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If technically the equipment is interchangeable, then the next question is already about administering the process and about who owns the modules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"For example, the boiler houses may be located on the territory of a particular heat utility, but the question is: who is the owner? Who gives the command to transfer these modules? When all the equipment is in state ownership, then a single command from a ministry or agency is enough to transfer it somewhere \u2014 they just go and transfer it. So yes, it is very important who the owner is,\" says Maksym Chikinieiev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chief Project Engineer Volodymyr Sharapov also draws attention to the technical limitations that may arise in the process of implementing projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Block-modular boiler houses are real energy independence. If some unexpected event occurs, you still need to have the ability to connect to heat, to have a choice of several different sources. But here is what I want to draw attention to: large cities like Kyiv or Mykolaiv need free space to site an energy facility. It is not enough just to install a block-modular boiler house. This must be taken into account in dense development. Secondly, you need to consider access to the networks that need to be connected. Based on Mykolaiv's experience, the length of these networks can be several kilometers to the point where you can connect. So before planning a project, it is very important to understand whether it is even possible to install an energy facility in a way that meets all the requirements,\" says Volodymyr Sharapov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n