An Austrian company said this week it has completed construction on the second phase of a planned 80-megawatt solar energy farm in Ukraine's Crimea region.

Activ Solar GmbH of Vienna and the State Agency of Ukraine for Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation said Wednesday that when completed later this year, the solar power plant in Okhotnikov, Ukraine, will be the largest of its kind in Europe.

The continent's current biggest solar electric generating plant is in Rovigo, Italy, and produces 72 megawatts.

The newly constructed phase is rated for 20 megawatts. Its similarly sized first phase is the largest operational photovoltaic plant in both Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the company says.

The effort -- part of Ukraine's national Natural Energy Project -- will consist of four phases and, when all of them are finished by the end of this year, their area will be the equivalent of 207 soccer fields and they will provide energy for around 20,000 households.

"A project of this scale means a radical change of solar energy development in Europe, while securing Ukraine's position as renewable energy provider," Activ Solar Chief Executive Officer Kaveh Ertefai, said in a statement.

Ukraine's energy efficiency agency says the funding for the solar farm and other parts of its Natural Energy Project come from the profits the government receives from selling carbon dioxide quotas under the Kyoto Protocol.

Kiev received almost $400 million from Japan last year that way, it said.

It's hoped the Crimea solar project will reduce Ukraine's CO2 emissions by 80,000 tons. The vast solar field will comprise 360,000 PV modules covering an area of 400 acres when completed, officials said.

Ukraine's goal is to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity from solar and wind power and to have green sources make up 30 percent of its energy market by 2015 -- a large goal considering the country is the 12th-largest energy market in the world is dependent on gas imported from Russia to supply it.

Excluding large hydropower, less than 0.5 percent of Ukraine's total primary energy demand comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has estimated.

The growth of Ukraine's green energy sector is also being hampered by a lack of transparency and a cumbersome bureaucracy, the English-language Kiev Post newspaper reported.

Ukraine has implemented a "green tariff" in which the government will pay $0.338 per kilowatt hour -- well above market rates -- for electricity from green sources, which is helpful, but analysts told the newspaper that mostly well-connected companies are getting the best deals.

Activ Solar, it said, is an example. The Austrian company has close links to First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev. Ertefai is the son-in-law of Klyuyev's brother, Party of Regions lawmaker Serhiy Klyuyev, the Post reported.

"It is no good for the investment climate if only companies connected to government officials are getting green tariffs and other preferences," Anna Derevyanko, executive director of the European Business Association, told the newspaper.

The Klyuyev brothers didn't respond to requests for an interview, the Post said.

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