Anton Antonenko, Vice President, DiXi Group, comments on the situation.
“Despite the optimistic nature of the news, adoption does not mean implementation. That’s why it is early to claim Ukraine’s efforts successful until the National Action Plan is implemented. Otherwise, where is the good of such document? The Plan, a very ambitious one, contains key action to be implemented by Ukraine pursuant to the European directives — energy efficiency of buildings, 100-percent coverage with meters, energy marking and many other items discussed in Ukraine as a distant future. The Plan provides for very demanding targets: energy consumption to equal 9 percent of average domestic end consumption in 2005–2009 by 2020 and 7 percent by 2017.
What good is this Plan to ordinary Ukrainians and why is it so important? This document will add predictability as it describes and calculates the state policy in the field of energy efficiency. It is a kind of memorandum for our state, where it declares its commitments and ways of their implementation. The exceptional role of the expert community and relevant international organizations will be to control its implementation. Such implementation will become a real indicator of the Plan’s success. It will show whether the Plan, like many other similar documents, just excited the imagination, but remained ink on paper.
Meanwhile, Ukraine needs to speed up. It goes not only about the fact that many of the mechanisms included in the Plan serve as indicators for granting international financial assistance. There is something more important: the adoption of the Energy Efficiency Directive by the Energy Community launched the discussion of models for the third Action Plan. Certainly, it will include new and more ambitious targets. It’s clear that it is a time to form the basis for their implementation. Ukraine has no right to lag behind and be lost at the crossroads of energy efficiency.
