Work is nearly complete on a solar power plant that may herald the transformation of land poisoned by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Chernobyl's Sunny Future
- By RFE/RL
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Workers link up wiring for Chernobyl's new solar power plant. In the background is the chimney of the nuclear reactor that exploded in 1986 in one of the world's worst-ever nuclear disasters.
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Workers wrestle one of the new Chernobyl project's 3,800 solar panels into position. The Ukrainian-German company behind the project told AFP on January 10 that the solar plant will generate enough electricity to power "a large village," or around 2,000 apartments.
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A worker strolls between the solar arrays. The company was quoted in January as saying it expects the $1.2 million project to begin operation "within weeks." Despite the gloomy weather in these photos, Chernobyl reportedly shares the same number of sunlight hours as southern Germany.
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The abandoned town of Pripyat, 3 kilometers from Soviet-built Chernobyl power plant. Following the 1986 nuclear disaster, a region of land the size of Luxembourg was declared unlivable and unusable for agriculture.
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In 2016, Belarus, also affected by Chernobyl fallout, opened a solar power plant (pictured) on their own poisoned land, sparking interest in the green energy opportunities of the so-called exclusion zone.
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With strict prohibitions on drilling into the irradiated soil of the exclusion zone, Chernobyl's new solar panels were mounted onto blocks of concrete.
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As well as cheap land, another advantage of the solar plant's unusual location is access to the infrastructure that once channeled electricity from the nuclear plant out to the surrounding towns.
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Interest has now reportedly soared in investment opportunities in Chernobyl. A Ukrainian government spokeswoman told AFP that Kyiv has received about 60 proposals from foreign companies interested in developing solar power plants in the exclusion zone.
