#EnergyWings: by the end of 2023, energy workers in the Odesa region will reinforce 36 stork nests on the poles in order to prevent power outages for customers and protect the birds
DTEK Odesa Grids installs special artificial platforms for nests on the poles – robust baskets made of metal rods. They are attached to the electric poles above the level of wires. This will help prevent emergencies and power outages for the customers. Additionally, this will protect the storks from electrocution and death, when the birds will return to Ukraine in spring. Since the beginning of the year, DTEK energy workers have already installed 21 platforms for stork nests in the Odesa region. The plan is to install 15 more by the end of the year.
“Despite the war, DTEK Odesa Grids continues to restore and reinforce the energy infrastructure, as well as develop the grids based on the sustainable development principles. Our energy workers are now primarily preparing the grids for the upcoming winter and processing emergency requests, restoring electricity to the customers’ homes after bad weather, shelling or technological violations. But, as soon as we have an opportunity, we install metal platforms for stork nests wherever it is required,” – underscored Dmytro Hryhoriev, CEO at DTEK Odesa Grids.
The company constantly involves influencers to participate in the project, who help reinforce nests and take care of the storks. In 2023, the campaign already attracted such famous Ukrainians as Borys Barskyi and Oleh Filimonov.
Overall, from 2020 to 2022, DTEK has installed 186 platforms in the Odesa region. According to the ecologists’ estimates, this helped protect more than 700 specimens of the white stork. In July 2023, the company launched a new feature on the website to provide customers with an opportunity to inform about an emergency stork nest on the power line poles.
Let us remind that since 2021, energy workers relocate stork nests to the metal platforms within the framework of the environmental and educational project #EnergyWings, initiated by DTEK Grids, to help preserve population of the white stork in Ukraine and draw attention of the society to an important subject – caring attitude towards wildlife. Its main objective is popularization of protection and preservation of biodiversity, promotion of ESG principles, as well as values and responsibility of business for progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Global Compact.