Fuel and Energy Complex does not download Russian software – Kommersant

The fuel and energy complex of Russia is asking the government to reconsider the timing of the transition to Russian IT solutions. Refusal of imported software until 2025 and software and hardware systems until 2026 threatens the industry with billions in losses, as well as energy shortages in the country, the Ministry of Energy warns. Industry companies are in favor of compensation for import substitution costs and propose to include them in tariffs for industrial consumers of electricity from 2024.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the minutes of the meeting of the State Council Commission on Energy dated March 1 on the issues of import substitution of software and hardware systems (HSS) and software (SW) at critical information infrastructure facilities of the fuel and energy complex (FEC; 231 organizations in the Russian Federation) with the participation of the Ministry of Energy , Mintsifra. It follows from the protocol that the Ministry of Energy sees a number of risks in the process of replacing foreign IT solutions, noting that according to current requirements it is impossible to replace all the necessary components on time. According to a presidential decree dated March 2022, it is prohibited to use foreign software at KII facilities from 2025, and PAK from 2025.

The Ministry of Energy notes that the transition to domestic solutions requires the decommissioning of primary equipment (generators, transformers, etc.), which threatens to create an energy shortage: “The term for stopping the operation of equipment can be from two to six months.”

Also, it follows from the protocol that equipment on enterprise management systems (APCS, a complex of software and HSS) has a long service life, and their replacement before full depreciation threatens companies with costs. According to the Ministry of Energy, the share of foreign solutions at the facilities of the fuel and energy complex “remains quite high”: in particular, now the Windows operating system is the basis of all software and software developed by the companies of the fuel and energy complex. According to Rosseti, compliance with the ban on the use of foreign software may require the fuel and energy complex about 280 billion rubles.

As a result of the meeting, the commission proposed to the Ministry of Digital Development and the Ministry of Energy to extend the terms of import substitution, and to the Ministry of Finance to provide in the budget for the costs of financing these activities for the fuel and energy complex. The commission also proposed to include, from 2024, compensation for the costs of power engineers for the modernization of replacing imported process control systems with domestic counterparts in the price of competitive power take-off (CTO), which will increase the payment of industrial energy consumers for the power capacity of thermal power plants.

The development of alternative models for financing import substitution is relevant for the industry, since there are no PAK manufacturers and software suppliers on the market with the necessary experience in servicing gas turbine units, T Plus says.

The optimal time for the transition to alternative software in the company is 2026, in terms of PAK – 2028. Rosenergoatom reported that they plan to completely abandon imported software by 2025.

The Ministry of Energy believes that it is incorrect to set a single date for the complete import substitution of automated process control systems in the energy sector: “For newly built or reconstructed facilities, Russian automated process control systems should initially be selected, and for existing ones, the replacement of foreign solutions must be carried out as part of repairs and upgrades, taking into account schedules developed by their owners. The Ministry of Digital Development did not answer “Kommersant”.

The “Community of Energy Consumers” (unites industrial consumers) stated that the appearance of additional coefficients to the price of capacity “inevitably leads to the return of tariff regulation with the need to review and verify the validity of all costs of energy companies.”

The main problem now is to replace specialized solutions for automated process control systems, Andrey Krylov, director of the digital technology center at Simulation and Digital Twins JSC, will explain: “from scratch”, because of which it will be necessary to stop production, which will cause losses and risks. Factory5 CEO (develops industrial software) Denis Kasimov agrees that the current terms of import substitution are practically impossible for the fuel and energy complex.

Tatiana Isakova, Polina Smertina, Tatiana Dyatel, Timofei Kornev