Against the backdrop of rising electricity costs and unstable power supply, energy efficiency is becoming the top priority when choosing equipment for vegetable storage facilities in Ukraine. This was stated by Andriy Marushchak, Commercial Director of Van Dijk Technics, during the “PROFITABLE AGRIBUSINESS 2026: Strategies. Innovations. Investments” conference, EastFruit reports, citing SEEDS.
According to the expert, just a few years ago this factor was often underestimated, as electricity was more affordable and uninterrupted supply was largely taken for granted. However, the situation has changed dramatically. Electricity tariffs are rising, while the risk of outages is forcing farmers and agribusinesses to pay much closer attention to the long-term efficiency of their investments.
“Today, energy efficiency is no longer just about costs – it is about whether you will be able to operate at all. For those who own vegetable storage facilities, energy consumption directly affects the cost of production. Farmers pay for electricity every year.
That is why, under current conditions, energy efficiency must come first when purchasing equipment, and even earlier – at the stage of assessing whether such an investment makes sense in the first place. Storage equipment is something you buy once, but then operate for 25 to 30 years,” Andriy Marushchak emphasized.
In his view, attempts to save money at the initial stage often lead to much greater losses in the future. Cheaper but more energy-intensive equipment can create long-term financial pressure on a business through higher electricity bills year after year.
Van Dijk’s conclusions are based on substantial practical experience. According to Marushchak, the company’s specialists have implemented more than 200 projects in Ukraine and over 150 more abroad. Some of these facilities have been operating successfully for more than two decades.
“As of today, both in Ukraine and abroad, we have projects that have been operating for more than 20 years. And I hope they will continue to operate for at least another 10 years. But these are exactly the storage facilities equipped with energy-efficient systems. At the time of construction, the initial cost of the equipment was not as important to the customer as its energy efficiency,” he noted.
The expert also drew attention to solar energy, which has recently become a popular topic in Ukraine, particularly amid financing and lending programmes supporting renewable energy projects. At the same time, he stressed that solar panels are not a universal solution for every type of business.
For vegetable storage facilities, the main challenge is seasonality. The heaviest workload typically falls between late September and May, when solar generation is much lower. Therefore, for conventional vegetable storage operations, solar energy cannot always serve as a fully effective energy solution.
For berry producers, however, the situation is quite different. “It is possible to equip a vegetable storage facility with solar panels, and we even have clients in eastern Ukraine who have done so. But there is one issue: vegetable storage facilities do not operate at the same time as peak solar generation. They usually start operating from around the end of September until approximately May, when active sunshine returns.
For Ukraine’s berry producers, however, solar generation is a must-have. These are ideal conditions because berries are harvested from June to September, which is the period of the highest solar generation. So solar panels are not a universal remedy, but as a mandatory attribute of a berry farm, I believe they should definitely be there,” Andriy Marushchak said. Thus, under current Ukrainian conditions, the energy efficiency of storage equipment is becoming not just an additional advantage, but one of the key factors of competitiveness. For vegetable producers, this is no longer merely a matter of saving money, but of being able to operate consistently, preserve product quality, and control production costs in the long term.
The 6th conference “PROFITABLE AGRIBUSINESS 2026: Strategies. Innovations. Investments” was organized by Sapienza.media, an agri-media and PR agency, together with the Ukrainian Horticultural Association (UHA).
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