Ukraine is undergoing a massive energy security crisis, with the Russian invasion destroying many valuable power installations all over the country. The ongoing war has had a huge toll on energy security and prices, not just in Ukraine, but in Europe and beyond, with the natural gas supply bound for multiple countries being interrupted.
To support Ukraine’s energy security amid the conflict, Enovate AI, an international company specializing in digital solutions for the energy industry, has partnered with Geothermal Ukraine, a nonprofit researching the integrated harvesting of geothermal resources in the country. The partnership will leverage Enovate’s international expertise in digital engineering and automation, which has contributed to various decarbonization and energy security programs all over the world.
Enovate is helping Geothermal Ukraine to repurpose old, Soviet-era oil and gas wells that were abandoned when the Soviet Union collapsed. These wells can be retrofitted to become sources of geothermal energy, to help alleviate Ukraine’s energy crisis. One particular project is in Western Ukraine, far from the major conflict points, where they are studying the feasibility of building large-scale geothermal power plants over old wells. Ukraine’s energy strategy involves ramping up the production of electricity from alternative sources by 25% to 30% until 2030, with geothermal making up 2% of the total energy supply.
According to Camilo Mejia, CEO of Enovate, the partnership aligns with one of the company’s major goals, which is to increase the availability of low-carbon electricity sources, which includes geothermal. By working with Geothermal Ukraine, Enovate is helping create more efficient geothermal technologies, reduce the system’s risk profile, increase profitability, and make it a sustainable, long-term undertaking.
Enovate is deploying an innovative, integrated cloud-based workflow, tailored to the conditions in Ukraine, aimed at evaluating the cost-effectiveness of adopting geothermal production in low to medium enthalpy systems by repurposing the wells. The workflow introduces an automated and intrinsically secure decision-making process to convert mature wells into geothermal wells, enabling both operational and financial assessment of the conversion process.
The project will benefit from Enovate’s ADA AI™ Geothermal platform, which offers real-time IoT and AI pattern recognition for electricity generation and remote plant supervision. This includes AI forecasting, which uses advanced physics-informed machine learning and statistical models that determine the most suitable approach for forecasting energy production and consumption. It takes into consideration market trends, based on current conditions, historical data, and other influencing factors. Being able to accurately forecast supply and demand for energy is the next step to ensure energy security. The platform is also able to monitor equipment lifespans and predict maintenance needs or potential failures, allowing operators to conduct proactive interventions and minimize downtime.
“The team at Geothermal Ukraine is mostly composed of professionals from the oil and gas industry, and they found us through our shared industry links,” Mejia says. “They approached us and we were impressed at their proposal and the work they do to improve their country’s energy security, so we explored possible collaborations. The partnership has been fruitful and we are looking to expand the project further to determine how to better harness Ukraine’s geothermal resources. We hope that lending our expertise will be able to contribute to the rebuilding of Ukraine’s energy sector which has been damaged by the war and assist its transition to clean energy.”
