Switzerland will provide ₴105 million for solar panels for Mykolaivvodokanal, with a further ₴16 million coming from the city

Solar panels, illustrative photo by NikVesti

Switzerland will provide 105.8 million hryvnias for the purchase of solar panels with batteries for the municipal utility Mykolaivvodokanal. A further 16.8 million hryvnias is to be allocated from the city budget.

This is reported in the article by NikVesti entitled «Water during power cuts: what will the new project with Switzerland bring to Mykolaiv?».

Deputy Mayor Serhii Korenev explained that solar panels and batteries are planned to be installed at 11 Mykolaivvodokanal sites. Such systems will be installed to power seven sewage pumping stations and four water supply stations in the city.

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«For the people of Mykolaiv, this means there will be water in the taps even when the power is out. During shelling and power cuts, it is these facilities that suffer the most. Now they will have their own independent power supply from the sun,» explained Serhii Korenev.

The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs will provide 1.7 million Swiss francs for this, and the Swiss company Elektrobedarf Troller will contribute 190,000 Swiss francs. Together, this amounts to approximately 105.8 million hryvnias.

A further 300,000 Swiss francs is to be provided by the municipal enterprise Mykolaivvodokanal. This amounts to approximately 16.8 million hryvnias.

This project for Mykolaiv will be implemented following the results of the «Competition for Projects on the Economic Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine in Cooperation with Swiss Companies», which was held by Switzerland in 2025, the city council told NikVesti.

Read also the article by NikVesti «The state is building new treatment plants, while Mykolaiv insists on modernising them with an EIB loan: what the city stands to gain from this».

Water supply for Mykolaiv. A bit of history

It has been more than three years since Russian troops damaged the water pipeline that supplied Mykolaiv with water. Since then, the city of nearly half a million people has been left without a centralised supply of high-quality water.

All this time, Mykolaiv residents have been receiving water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of such water and the salt content in it. The salt water damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city’s water supply network. Borys Dudenko, Director of Mykolaivvodokanal, stated that it is impossible to replace the entire length of the network damaged by the influx of salt water.

For a long time, representatives of the state and local authorities sought options for restoring the drinking water supply in Mykolaiv. A final decision was reached in 2024: a new water pipeline will be laid from Nova Odesa, with funding allocated from the state budget.

The regional reconstruction service even selected contractors who would work on a ‘design-build’ basis. These were three companies, each responsible for one of the three sections of work: Ukrtransmist, Rostdorstroi and Avtostrada. However, both the client and the construction contractor were subsequently changed. The client for the construction of the new water pipeline became the Infrastructure Restoration and Development Service in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and the contractor was the ‘Autostrada’ group of companies.

The new water pipeline for Mykolaiv was commissioned on 7 October 2025 — it was connected to the water supply network.