Ukranian leather processing with less energy consumption

JSC “Vozko” is one of the biggest Ukrainian leather producers with over 500 employees and a 20 per cent market share. The company specialises in manufacturing of shoe upper chrome leather and has a capacity of 250 million square decimetres of finished leather per year. It also produces leather accessories, clothes and furniture, exporting 40% of its products to countries all over the world.

To modernize its production and save energy, the company decided to install new blowers, dryers and reactive power compensation, modernize own CHP, boiler house and light-aeration lamps, provide automatic control of pump station and purchase new truck loaders.

The company addressed UKEEP for financing of the project.

The UKEEP team performed the analysis of the proposed technologies, their potential for energy savings, profitability and financial-technical parameters.

The $700,000 investment allowed the company to reduce its gas, electricity, diesel and reactive power consumption for the total of $160,000 per year. The investment is repaid from energy savings only in less than five years. The project also brings a positive environmental effect through the reduction of CO2 emissions by 369 tonnes per year.

This investment is a good example of complex energy efficiency measures in manufacturing industry, proving that energy savings are possible in all sectors of economy.

This way, the EBRD and UKEEP support the sustainable financing and implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects by the private sector.