Webinar – Geothermal in Ukraine; challenges and opportunities, 31 May 2024

Focus on Geothermal webinar – Geothermal energy in Ukraine: Challenges and opportunities towards the global energy market

As part of the regular Focus on Geothermal Webinar series – a partnership of Enerchange and ThinkGeoEnergy – we are proud to host Taras Popadynets of Geothermal Ukraine for a webinar on “Geothermal energy in Ukraine: Challenges and opportunities towards the global energy market.”

In this webinar, Taras discusses the favorable geological conditions of Ukraine for wider geothermal development, as well as the key steps necessary to build a geothermal sector in the country and contribute to energy diversification and security.

Date: 31 May 2024

Time: 13:00 CEST

Registration: Click here to register

Speaker: Taras Popadynets, Head of Geothermal Ukraine

Ukraine stands at a pivotal moment in its energy transition, seeking to diversify its energy mix along the EU strategy and reduce dependence on  fossil fuels to enhance the energy security level. Geothermal energy presents a promising solution with its abundance of untapped potential.

With significant O&G industry history, infrastructure and geotemperature conditions, Ukraine has the potential for considerable geothermal resources, including high-temperature geothermal reservoirs (both hydro and petrothermal) and shallow aquifers, which are distributed across its territory with the most promising areas confined to the oil & gas-bearing regions.

Harnessing this indigenous, renewable geoenergy resource offers various benefits, from mitigating greenhouse gas emissions to providing affordable solutions for local communities, enhancing energy security and fostering economic development of Ukraine along with the EU RePower strategy and Decarbonization Plan.

However, despite its potential, geothermal energy remains mostly underexploited in Ukraine. How can Ukraine leverage its abundant geothermal resources to diversify its energy portfolio and enhance energy security? What are the key steps needed to elevate Ukraine’s geothermal profile and integrate it into the global energy market?

Taras Popadynets graduated from the Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas with a MSc degree in petroleum engineering. He also has a MSc degree from the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU LvBS), specializing in
Management, program of Innovations.

Since 2022, he has been a graduate student (Ph.D. program) at the Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas, Program of Petroleum Engineering and Technology with a research topic of “Technology enhancement for repurposing P&A and dry oil & gas wells to geothermal heat extraction”.

His professional background includes the roles of drilling and well engineering positions of conventional and  unconventional oil & gas exploration, production, and P&A campaigns. Since 2017  he has been an officer in Ivano Frankivsk/Central Ukraine SPE Professional Section, currently responsible for International relations. His professional career includes working locally and internationally is such companies as: Weatherford, ENI, Corva AI, Baker Hughes.

In April 2022, Taras co-founded the NGO Geothermal Ukraine, a non-profit organization and was elected as a Head of the Board of the organization. The main area of activity is the geoenergy promotion and advocating, R&D activities and feasibility study for shallow and deep geothermal energy projects application, hydrothermal balneological (SPA) application, geothermal energy storage, critical raw materials extraction potential as well as oil and gas legacy inventory repurposing potential evaluation to geothermal for running pilot projects.