The localization of production in Russia stumbled over the depreciation of energy networks. For example, the Bonum company, which produces heavy trailers, decided to move its workshops from the Rostov region to the Moscow region out of harm’s way due to constant power outages at enterprises in Aksai. Regular blackouts slow down production and break expensive machines. Similar problems are noted at enterprises in Tatarstan and other industrial regions. Business blames network companies for this, because of which they lose huge sums.
At the same time, Andrey Ryumin, head of Rosseti, constantly reports on progress in financing repair programs and consolidation of grid assets. But it doesn’t clash with reality. Now in the country’s electricity sector, Rosseti controls 80% of the country’s wires, and there are also private grid companies in the regions. Physically, the energy system is unified, and most of the private traders are connected either with Rosseti JSC or with its regional top managers. This allows you to remove old substations and lines from the balance sheet of Rosseti, transfer them to private companies and no longer monitor their condition.
Now 40% of private network companies out of 1.3 thousand do not meet the reliability requirements. They do not invest in repairs, they receive payment according to tariffs from the “common pot” and cut money with energy officials, being regular objects of criminal cases. Often dilapidated networks are leased to Rosseti and stolen for repairs from there.
Since the beginning of the year, a large-scale reform has been underway – in each region, the largest operator with the status of a backbone TSO is allocated. This is usually a local branch of Rosseti. In two years, 4-5 large TSOs should remain in each region. It is assumed that they will better monitor their networks, and prevent accidents and power outages.
But the monopolist does not even know what state the small chains are in. Deputy Minister of Energy Yevgeny Grabchak admitted that the Ministry of Energy has not yet learned how to measure the reliability of small TSOs. Rosseti is full of problems with its networks, which in many regions (for example, in the Caucasus, the Urals and Tatarstan) are worn out by 70-80%. The density of power grids per unit area in Russia remains one of the lowest in the world – 9 grids per 100,000 sq. km against 36 networks on average around the planet. In addition, for networkers, losses in networks do not decrease over the years, but grow in many regions. They could not go down to the planned 10%, and private traders have losses of up to 40%.
Consumers pay for the next large-scale revision and repair of worn-out and plundered infrastructure. Big business responds to this by developing its own generation. The medium-sized manufacturing business is suffering. The industries have already unexpectedly indexed the tariff for energy transmission through the main power grids by 6.3% from May 1, and in just a year the rise in price will be 18%. Starting next year, the Ministry of Energy wants to prohibit businesses from connecting directly to FGC’s backbone networks, bypassing the regional grid company, where tariffs are many times higher.
Taking into account the timing of the program for the gradual modernization of the energy sector until 2030, the increase in tariffs will not affect the current quality of connecting enterprises. Therefore, they will move and develop where it is higher. That is, as usual, closer to Moscow, to the detriment of other regions. And the reason for this is the poor quality of network management.