A small American non-profit charity is ramping up its efforts to deliver portable solar generation systems to households across Ukraine as the war-torn country emerges from another winter of relentless attacks on its energy infrastructure. 

The wait list for Hope for Ukraine’s $1,000 solar resilience kits now exceeds 20,000 families “and the need is only growing,” Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of the New Jersey-based organization, told The Energy Mix.

Hope for Ukraine is already looking ahead to next winter with particular concern for seniors and other vulnerable groups who barely managed to survive the cold, dark, and isolation inflicted upon them for much of the season just passed.

Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s energy system reached a truly vicious pitch this winter—the coldest in a decade—with the country enduring 15 large-scale attacks on its energy facilities between December and February alone, three times the average of the past three winters, reports the New York Times.

“It was infrastructure warfare designed to make civilian life fail and to trigger a humanitarian crisis,” Vladyslav Mikhnych, director of the Kyiv Energy and Climate Lab, told the Times.

Russia’s plan did not materialize, thanks to the determination of Ukrainians making constant repairs to their beleaguered grid.

Further buttressing Ukraine against the aggression of its eastern neighbour is—and will be—the country’s accelerating embrace of rooftop solar and wind turbines, a shift driven by the energy security and resilience these decentralized energy systems provide.

“Ukraine’s energy transition is not a slogan,” Ievgeniia Kopytsia, a Ukrainian energy analyst at the Institute for Climate Protection, Energy and Mobility told Yale 360. “It’s a security-driven transformation, unfolding under extreme constraints, that prioritizes decentralization, flexibility, and speed of recovery.” To this end, Ukraine has installed more than three gigawatts of new renewable capacity since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Kopystia added.

Safety, Comfort, Connection

Founded in 2016 to support displaced families forced to flee their homes in the Donbas region and Crimea following Russia’s invasion in 2014, Hope for Ukraine (HFU) has spent the past decade delivering humanitarian aid to some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens, including children, those with special needs, and seniors.

To date, HFU volunteers across the country have supplied more than 100 million meals to families struggling with food insecurity and helped nearly 70,000 children continue to learn, create, and play where years of war have made regular schooling and childhood pastimes near impossible.

In January 2025, HFU launched its fundraising campaign to deliver solar energy resilience kits to households left exposed to the cold and dark.

The idea for the kits took root when HFU volunteers delivering food supplies to front-line communities saw families cooking their meals over open, smoke-generating fires, Boyechko told The Mix. Smoky fires are “not safe when you live close to the front line,” Boyechko said.

The kits consist of a portable solar generator, a 200-watt solar panel, and an electric cooktop. The generator is equipped with AC ports to power lights and small appliances, as well as DC/USB ports to charge laptops and cell phones, thereby maintaining vital links to the outside world.

The kits are especially critical for Ukraine’s huge population of single mothers, “many of whom are among the country’s 3.7 million internally displaced persons” and therefore lack both the stability and the resources to secure the benefits of renewable technologies like rooftop solar, Boyhechko said.

In latest news, the HFU solar resilience kits themselves can now be integrated into the main electrical panel of an apartment, courtesy of a specialized transfer switch. This development will allow households to power all built-in fixtures and outlets simultaneously for up to five hours.

“To ensure safety and efficacy, we are currently only implementing this in regions where families can be paired with local professional electricians,” Gabriella Ramirez, HFU external and donor relations manager, told The Mix. HFU’s long-term goal is to provide one million low-income families in Ukraine with the kits over the next five to 10 years.