The main conceptual outcomes of ESINERGY project were presented during the Pre-Carpathian Energy Forum-2026

On May 27, the Pre-Carpathian Energy Forum-2026 (PEF-2026) “Cooperation for Energy Sustainability: National, Regional and Local Dimensions” was held at Ivano-Frankivsk King Daniel University. The event collected more than 100 offline representatives of local and regional authorities, central and regional governmental bodies, energy supply and distribution companies, NGOs, university and scientific communities (with a significant number of online participants as well).  The inputs and discussions were focused on what is happening to the Ukrainian energy sector during a full-scale war and what to do with this experience next.

The winter of 2025–2026 has become the most difficult since Ukraine's independence — massive strikes on generation and networks, long outages, power shortages and blackouts during peak hours. And at the same time — none of the basic challenges have disappeared: heating networks are worn out, the housing stock is not insulated, and communities mostly depend on several large facilities that can be easily destroyed with a few blow.

That is why the central topic of the forum was energy autonomy and distributed generation at the community level: what should be done in each city so that the main communal critical infrastructure continues to work even when the centralized system collapses. Participants talked about backup power for these institutions, local energy solutions, grid modernization and consumption management. Ukraine is moving towards the EU, which means specific commitments, green transformation, digitalization, energy efficiency standards. Two agendas — military and European integration — exist simultaneously, and communities must respond to both.

In particular, the experience gained within the implementation of ESINERGY project and practical solution of autonomic energy and heat supply for the local hospital of Khotyn community was presented by project expert Volodymyr Smolii. He had shortly described the outcomes of the implementation of the pilot project with focusing more on the general goals and solutions proposed by the Master Plan and opportunities of their further replication in Ukrainian communities. It is worth to mention that his input had initiated an intensive discussion within the panel participants and a flow of questions from the Forum offline and online audience.