Meet the gamechanger bringing renewables to Ukraine

Yuliana Onishchuk has two visions: to bring renewable energy to Ukraine and to get women working in the energy sector… and she’s delivering both. Kelvin Ross meets her.

Yuliana Onishchuk describes herself as a ‘gamechanger’.

She says it with no trace of ego or bluster: it’s just a simple statement of fact. It’s a phrase that’s frequently – and often inappropriately – used, however, it’s completely justified in Onishchuk’s case, because she’s someone who is – and here comes another over-used phrase – ‘making a difference’.

Onishchuk is the founder and executive director of the Energy Act for Ukraine Foundation, a charity which connects solar and energy storage systems to critical infrastructure in Ukraine.

I first interviewed her in November 2022 just days after the foundation had completed its first project: a school which had been damaged by Russian bombings.

At that time, the foundation’s staff comprised only four: now it’s risen to ten – seven women and three men – and the organisation has won three awards for its work.

The number of projects it has underway is increasing all the time, as is the number of backers donating both equipment and money to the organisation: notably Octopus Energy, which is currently undertaking 14 projects with the foundation.

What has also increased is Onishchuk’s profile: she has become the face of the foundation and the voice leading a rallying call to not just bring renewable energy to her home country, but also to inspire other women to choose clean energy as a career path.

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“A lot has changed,” she says when we meet again in the summer of 2024. “We now are focused on a greater thing, which is to develop a culture in the Ukrainian nation of the conscious use of natural resources.

“We are trying to create a systematic, comprehensive and gradual approach to make a shift in a mindset of Ukrainians in their attitude to renewable energy and bring them around so that renewables become a part of a life… a lifestyle.”

She says that in Ukraine, “the knowledge of solar power plants and the importance of their effect is very limited, so the work we do allows us to explain and provide education to people on the ground in small communities all around Ukraine”.

And that education starts with a bottom-up approach in the schools that Onishchuk and her co-workers provide with renewable energy.

“Our added value is education: we educate kids on renewables and green energy. We created our educational course which is additional to the education in school. We educate kids for one month where we explain why this solar power plant is in their school, why it is needed, how it works… and what sustainable habits that may create.”

Why is it important to reach those children at an early age? “Because they are going to live in the country and rebuild it for many years.

“I see the excitement of adults when they visit solar power plants, so for kids, it’s something unbelievable.”

She is equally passionate about the need for women to enter the renewable energy field. As the executive director of “a women-led NGO”, she has “a passion and desire to find the potential in women that are interested in this sector: but they need a push – they need to see the possibilities, or they need an example of someone who actually does it”.

“We are in the process of developing and looking for partners and donors who would join us to engage more women into the sector and give them the possibility to find a job in Ukraine and basically start a profession in the renewables sector.”

In terms of highlighting someone “who actually does it” as Onishchuk says, there is no better example than herself – as she has discovered.

“I remember one girl – she was around 14 years old – and was very excited: she found my job and the projects we do so important. She understood the effect of solar power and she was thinking that she wants to work in the sustainability field.

“So our activity in schools definitely has an impact on girls and maybe their future decisions.”

Onishchuk’s own decisions have been indelibly shaped by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

A lawyer by trade, she was working for Ukraine’s DTEK Grids when the Russian invasion began.

In response, she decided to launch the foundation, an action which she calls “the most obvious decision of my life”.

“The war pushed me to do the things I knew best and to do the best things for people. When the war started, the question I asked was: ‘What impact can I bring for society’?

“I had my skills, my education and my contacts: there is war in my country and I wanted to do something. All my past led me to this point where I could use all my instruments.”

And now, having leveraged all those ‘instruments’ to generate awareness and support for the foundation, she says she is in something of a sweet spot: “Every person wants that feeling in their lives when they understand that they are in the right place at the right time, and doing exactly the right things.”

It has not been an easy journey though. Although she admits that her lawyer’s tools of debate and negotiation have been useful, Onishchuk does not come across as a centre-of-attention extrovert, yet she has had to learn to be one.

“My role is to speak, and speak loudly.”

At the beginning of her journey she says she was “scared… but motivated”.

And success, she adds, “happens when you try. You try very hard and you go through different crises, but then there is this moment when you’re like, ‘I got it now – I understand’.

“And when understand, you succeed, and that’s an absolutely fantastic feeling.

“So, I would call myself a gamechanger. Because in 2022, at that point of my life, in this country, in its circumstances, I decided to change the attitude of people: I decided to influence and have a small impact on how our country should change.”

As a genuine gamechanger, disruptor and influencer, not to mention entrepreneur, what advice would she give to other women who are considering making their own ‘small impact’ as gamechangers?

“Dare,” she says. “Follow your dream and dare to try.”