Cherkasy power plant, Cherkasy, Ukraine. Image by Anton Galeta, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. This article by Nazarii Vivcharyk appeared on OpenDemocracy on December 15, 2021. It is republished as part of a content-sharing partnership and has been edited to fit the GV style. For power plant director Oleksiy Bida, a post-coal future in Ukraine is a “political decision”, he tells me as he guides me round the coal-fired power plant that powers 70 percent of public sector buildings and residences in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy. Cherkasy, home to just shy of 300,000 people on the banks of the huge Dnipro river that runs through the country, is one of many cities that predominantly rely on coal power in Ukraine. But that could come into question with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s COP26 promise that the country, like several others, will stop using coal by 2035. How this promise will translate in practice remains to be seen – including in Cherkasy. Bida says that his plant is ready to use natural gas instead, but that while it’s “technically possible”, it will be “unprofitable for our company and consumers, there will be a significant price rise”. For a transition to alternative energy, Cherkasy’s power plant will need investment, according to Bida, and it already finds it difficult to source coal in Ukraine itself. The country’s mines in Donbas used to provide it, but since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, many of them are now in occupied territory, or flooded. “We have a situation now where we have the money for coal, but we can’t buy it,” he remarks. Price rises for consumers, infrastructure and supply problems, technology, investments and political will are just some of the problems on the difficult path towards Ukraine’s post-coal future. Indeed, it is hard to imagine an energy transition in a country that frequently appears to be in the midst of an energy crisis. But with Ukraine supposed to stop using coal in only 14 years, the discussion needs to begin today. Ukraine is famous for its coal, or at least, it once was. The country’s mining region, Donbas, provided some of the best quality coal in the Soviet Union, and then independent Ukraine. Today, following the war in eastern Ukraine, some 39 of the mines in Donbas are flooded, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This translates into issues with supply and quality, and they’re already being felt in Cherkasy, which has problems with pollution and low temperatures. “The situation in Ukraine as a whole, and here in Cherkasy, is critical,” Anatoly Bondarenko, head of Cherkasy city council, stated recently. “We don’t have enough coal, and the coal that was brought in from Poland does not have the right heat value, and so our buildings are often cold.” Pavlo Karas, head of the town’s public energy infrastructure company, recently reported that, with the Ukrainian government’s move away from coal, Cherkasy’s coal-fired power plant will last another ten to 20 years before it is shut down. Karas’ company operates on gas, and heats a significantly smaller number of homes in town, but it does have a heating plant that could be reconstructed and put back into operation. Yet the current problems with heating in Cherkasy seem to overshadow the long-term picture, according to Viktor Bezzubenko, the deputy mayor: “Our power plant can work with gas and coal, but they’re getting half of the coal they need right now – they need 60,000 tonnes a month, and they get 30,000. And so to keep the town warm, we have to use gas, and it’s relatively expensive.” Indeed, Bida, says his plant actually has the funds to purchase coal, but cannot get the quality material he needs: “We’ve written to state-owned mines, we wanted to buy Ukrainian coal from Pavlohrad like before, but unfortunately we couldn’t.” Furthermore, the introduction of new market processes in Ukraine’s energy sector is still at an early stage – and has had negative effects, says expert Viktor Kurtev. “The system is not only out of balance technically, it’s also out of balance financially,” he says, pointing to significant debts between Ukrainian energy companies. “The energy management system has been destroyed, and we’re not just talking about oligarchs here. It’s also the government’s responsibility.” President Zelenskyy, for his part, recently called on Ukrainian businesses and the media to stop spreading news about supply problems for coal and gas. “At some point our angelic patience will end,” he said, “and for some a hellish period will begin.” openDemocracy asked Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy for its position on the country’s commitment to stop using coal.