Strategic prospects of the electric power industry of Russia

Abstract

The prospects for the development of the electric power industry of Russia adopted at a regular stage of working out the Energy Strategy and the General Plan of Distribution of the Electric Power Facilities are discussed. The monitoring of the progress in the implementation of the Energy Strategies for the periods until 2020 and 2030 adopted in 2003 and 2009 has, in general, validated the correctness of the estimated volumes of the energy resource production under overestimation of the expected domestic demand owing to an excessively optimistic forecast of the real development of the economy. The priority lines of the national energy policy in electric power and allied industries proposed in the Energy Strategy for the period until 2035 are considered. The tools for implementation of most of the proposals and the effectiveness of their implementation have yet to be defined more concretely. The development of the energy sector and the electric power industry under the conservative and optimistic scenarios of the development of the country’s economy has been predicted using the SCANER modeling and information system, viz., the dynamics of the domestic consumption, export, and production of the primary energy and the electric power has been determined and the commissioning and structure of the required generating capacities and the consumption of the basic types of the energy resources by the electric power industry and the centralized heat supply systems has been optimized. Changes in the economic efficiency of the nuclear and thermal power plants under the expected improvements on their cost and performance characteristics and an increase in the domestic fuel prices are presented. The competitiveness of the wind and solar power production under Russian conditions has been evaluated considering the necessity of reservation and partial duplication of their capacities when operated in the power supply systems. When optimizing the electric power industry as a subsystem of the country’s energy sector, the required amounts of capital investments in the industry have been assessed. Based on the obtained data and the predicted prices of fuel in the main pricing zones of Russia, the ranges of changes in the prices of the electric power in agreement with the macroeconomic restrictions on their dynamics have been calculated.