Russia’s war against Ukraine has shown that energy security is no longer just about access to fuels, pipelines, and large power stations. It also depends on solar panels, batteries, and other distributed energy equipment that can keep homes, businesses, and critical services operating when the electricity grid is under attack.

Ironically, most of the equipment helping Ukraine keep the lights on comes from China.

Beijing has maintained close strategic ties with Russia. Yet through trade and global supply chains, Chinese-made clean energy technologies are helping Ukraine reduce the vulnerability created by Russian attacks on its energy system.

Russia’s attacks exposed the vulnerability of Ukraine’s highly centralized power system. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that around half of Ukraine’s generation capacity was occupied, damaged or destroyed during 2022-23, while around half of its large network substations were damaged by missiles and drones. After another wave of attacks in spring 2024, Ukraine lost a further 9 GW of generation capacity, leaving it with only around one-third of its pre-war capacity. On January 20, 2026, another major Russian attack on energy infrastructure left almost half of Kyiv without heat and power.

Such attacks turned Ukraine’s large, fixed energy assets into major points of vulnerability, making energy decentralization an increasingly important source of resilience. Consequently, there has been a resurgence of solar power in Ukraine. 

The country was already a significant solar market before Russia’s full-scale invasion, ranking ninth globally for new solar capacity addition in 2019. But deployment and trade collapsed after February 2022. Chinese module exports to Ukraine fell from 83.9 MW in February 2022 to just 7.5 MW in March, and totaled only 15.8 MW in 2023. 

Since then, the market has recovered. The Solar Energy Association of Ukraine estimated that around 800 MW of solar was installed in 2024 and 1.5 GW in 2025. Businesses and households have been installing solar power to reduce their dependence on the grid. Distributed solar PV, often combined with battery storage, has therefore become an important part of Ukraine’s wartime energy security.

International organizations, such as the IEA and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, have recently examined Ukraine’s energy reconstruction, covering aspects such as decentralization, solar power, battery storage, financing, and electricity-market reform. However, these reports tell us remarkably little about the sources of the equipment needed for this transition.

In particular, the role of Chinese-made equipment in this shift has received much less attention. According to the IEA, China accounts for around 85 percent of global solar supply-chain production capacity and around 80 percent of lithium-ion battery production capacity. Its share in some specific segments is even higher – for example, China supplies around 95 percent of global PV wafer capacity.

Currently there is no authoritative estimate on the specific share of Chinese-made equipment in Ukraine’s solar and battery markets, not least because some products reach Ukraine through third countries, international procurement channels, and aid programs. Still, given China’s dominance of these supply chains, Chinese-made equipment is likely to have played an important role in Ukraine’s decentralized energy expansion and will probably continue to do so.

This raises an intriguing question. Does China’s position in these supply chains give Beijing significant leverage over Ukraine? Could China, particularly given its close relations with Russia, use access to clean energy equipment as a coercive geopolitical tool?

Supply chain concentration undoubtedly creates structural influence. But as I argued in an article in September 2025 in The Diplomat, it does not translate automatically into the kind of coercive power historically associated with oil and gas.

In Ukraine’s case, three factors are particularly relevant. 

First, clean energy equipment moves through complex international commercial networks. A substantial volume of Chinese products can reach Ukraine indirectly through third countries, distributors, international procurement, and aid programs. This makes it difficult for Beijing to control the ultimate destination or end user. Blocking such flows would require much wider restrictions and would be commercially and politically difficult.

Second, weaponizing clean-energy supply would impose considerable costs on China’s own industries. It could expose Chinese companies to greater regulatory and compliance risks while strengthening Western arguments for supply chain diversification, domestic manufacturing, and “friend-shoring.” In the long run, that could accelerate precisely the reduction in dependence that Chinese manufacturers would prefer to avoid.

Third, such restrictions would contradict Beijing’s stated approach to the Russia-Ukraine war. China has repeatedly called for promoting peace talks while maintaining civilian trade. Deliberately restricting technologies important to civilian electricity supply would be difficult to reconcile with that position and could carry diplomatic and reputational costs.

When it comes to clean energy, China’s industrial dominance does not necessarily translate into the ability to exercise political control. Global commercial networks can significantly constrain a government’s ability to determine where clean technologies ultimately go and how they are used.

A further question is how the Chinese government and Chinese companies might participate constructively in Ukraine’s ongoing energy transformation and eventual reconstruction.

The potential market is substantial. The IEA estimates that Ukraine would need to add around 4 GW of distributed solar PV each year through 2030 to build a more decentralized and secure electricity system while meeting its national energy and climate objectives. It would also require an additional 5.6 GW of battery energy capacity by 2030.

For Chinese companies, the opportunities extend beyond exporting more solar modules and batteries. There is considerable scope for cooperation in system integration, energy management, technology transfer, joint project development, local assembly and production, and operations and maintenance.

But such involvement would not be straightforward. Chinese firms would have to navigate wartime risks, technical standards, financing constraints, supply chain security screening, and an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. Companies seeking to participate will therefore need to create value locally, build trusted partnerships, and adapt to an institutional and regulatory environment, particularly as Ukraine becomes more deeply integrated into European energy markets.

Ukraine’s experience offers a broader lesson about the geopolitics of clean energy. Countries still need secure fuel supplies and reliable power grids, but they also need access to the equipment used to produce and store electricity locally. China’s lead in manufacturing gives it considerable influence, though not complete control. Once solar panels and batteries enter global trading networks, they can contribute to energy security in ways that go beyond the intentions or expectations of their country of origin.