Ukraine: Keeping the lights on where the frontline is near

With funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, DRC has been installing hybrid solar power systems with battery storage at critical facilities across several oblasts — designed to keep essential services running even when the grid cannot.

When seconds are the difference

At a surgical hospital in Sumy, around 400 patients are admitted on any given day. The building supplied by the new solar system houses seven operating rooms, a dialysis unit and a hospice ward where patients depend on oxygen around the clock.

The most dangerous moment was never a long blackout — it was the gap. When grid power cuts out, generators take roughly 35 seconds to start. For a patient on the operating table, those seconds matter.

"Right now, we have no interruption between generators. Everything switches automatically. Computers don't even flicker," says Oleksii, director of the hospital. "For unexpected outages, we are confident that thanks to this hybrid system, both patients and medical staff remain safe."

The system — 120 kW of solar panels, 240 kW of inverters, and 75 kWh of battery storage — was designed from the outset as a foundation to build on: prioritising critical equipment like operating rooms, dialysis machines and laboratories, with capacity to expand storage as further support becomes available.

Currently covering approximately 20% of the hospital's total consumption, it allows also to cut the utilities costs.

A clinic that stayed lit through the blackouts

In Babai village, Kharkiv Oblast, the local ambulatory serves over 6,000 registered patients — the primary medical point for the surrounding community. This winter brought outages twice a day, and some lasted far longer.

The solar system installed here automatically switches to battery backup the moment the grid cuts out and returns to grid power once supply is restored. On sunny days, the panels charge the batteries directly. The system is designed to operate autonomously for up to five hours, because for a medical facility, a shorter window is often not enough.

"Each system is designed around the real needs of the location," says Ievgen, DRC Shelter and Settlement Manager. "We installed more batteries than originally planned — because sometimes even three hours is not enough for critical infrastructure."

Not every site in the oblast proved suitable. Structural assessments ruled out several facilities where aging roofs could not safely bear the additional load — a common challenge across Ukraine's older social infrastructure. Babai, where local authorities had recently carried out roof repairs, was one of the more straightforward cases.

"We reduced our electricity costs by around 50%"

In Okhtyrka, Sumy Oblast, a school serving over 200 children faced a parallel challenge: outages that pushed the institution into near-total dependence on generators and the fuel costs that come with them.

The school is one of the few in the region still offering in-person education — others have moved online due to the lack of adequate shelter. It also serves as a Point of Invincibility, open to anyone in the community who needs to charge a phone, warm up, heat a meal or find a place to rest.

To support the installation, part of the school's roof was reconstructed, with 40 kW of solar panels, two 20 kW inverters and 40 kWh of battery storage fitted across more than 130 square metres.

The impact was felt within days.

"After just one week of operating the battery and inverter system, we roughly estimate that we saved about 22,500 UAH on fuel alone," says Svitlana, the school's principal. "We also reduced our electricity costs by around 50%."

For communities close to the front line, a power outage can mean a cancelled surgery, a clinic in the dark, children sent home. Dozens of solar hybrid power plants have now been installed across the oblasts with funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark — so that when the grid fails, they no longer have to.