US makes major wartime bet on Ukraine’s largest private energy company with $85 million investment

Ukraine’s biggest private energy firm, DTEK, has secured an $85 million loan from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation for a critical battery storage project, marking the DFC’s largest wartime transaction, DTEK announced on Sept. 16.

With Russia continuing to target Ukraine’s energy facilities, particularly power plants, ensuring a reliable energy supply has become a major concern in Ukraine. During the war, Ukraine has increasingly searched for investors to bolster its grid by decentralizing energy generation and supply.

DTEK, owned by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, has positioned itself as an entry point for foreign investors in the energy sector, recently inking agreements with U.S. and European firms. But despite a few deals signed over the last 18 months, Ukraine has yet to see a wave of large-scale foreign investment in its energy sector.

The company's CEO Maxim Timchenko believes the deal with Washington could open the door to further foreign investment in Ukraine and inspire confidence in wartime investing. It could also be a game changer for DTEK, which has had difficulties accessing financing from international financial institutions like the European Bank for Reconstruction over its ownership.

"For me, the financial part is very important, but much more significant is this signal that DFC is ready to support Ukraine and DTEK. They have made an assessment of the risk, understand how to manage it, and are saying that private investors should follow. That's how important this is," Timchenko told reporters.

DTEK opened the battery storage facility last September with American energy firm Fluence Energy Inc., which provided 698 Gridstack batteries. Together, the batteries form a 200-megawatt system that can power 600,000 Ukrainian homes for two hours — reducing blackout risks and helping to stabilize the grid in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.

While the DFC loan will primarily refinance loans initially provided by Ukrainian banks, it will also help DTEK build more battery storage with Fluence, Timchenko said. Most developers in Ukraine purchase batteries with Chinese components, but DTEK wanted American products, creating an opportunity to partner with the DFC, he added.

"Today’s approximately $85 million in board-approved investments demonstrates the scale and ambition of DFC’s mission: mobilizing private-sector capital in priority markets, strengthening critical supply chains and economic resilience, and providing reliable, market-based alternatives to malign influence," DFC CEO Ben Black wrote in the press release.

Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. is investing in projects that strictly exclude Chinese parts to compete with sectors dominated by Beijing. In March, the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund — jointly managed by the DFC and Kyiv — inked a deal with defense-tech firm Sine Engineering, which builds software for drones without any Chinese components.

The DFC has long expressed interest in Ukraine’s energy sector and has been in talks with DTEK for several months, likely because it is the largest private player in a sector dominated by state-owned companies.

The company is preparing for winter and needs to restore 4 gigawatts (GW) of power generation by the heating season, when Russia is expected to launch another mass bombing campaign targeting power plants.

Last winter, all of DTEK’s thermal plants were hit, and energy workers have been repairing the damage around the clock ever since. Timchenko told reporters on Sept. 10 that he is confident the company will be ready for another harsh winter.