“Rosseti” asked the President to prohibit the free transfer of industry to its own generation

According to Kommersant, Russian President Vladimir Putin considered “fair” the proposals of the head of Rosseti, Andrei Ryumin, to ban the free transfer of industry to its own generation. Mr. Ryumin proposes to charge industry compensation for lost income for leaving the general network. However, industrial companies warn that such initiatives will only accelerate the shift of business to their own block stations. The government is already looking into the issue, but analysts doubt the feasibility of the idea, since it will be difficult to justify the amount of the “compensation payment.”

As Kommersant found out, President Vladimir Putin supported the new proposals of the head of the state holding Rosseti, Andrei Ryumin, to reduce the company’s “lost revenues.” In his next address to the President, Mr. Ryumin asked to solve the problem of industry leaving the general power grid for its own generation, which reduces productive output and the load on power lines and Rosseti substations. The letter, which Kommersant reviewed, was sent to Vladimir Putin on August 16 along with a proposal to transfer industry to pay for transmission services on a “take-or-pay” basis (see “Kommersant” dated September 12).

The industry has been discussing for many years the problem of the industry gradually switching to partial consumption of electricity from its own generation in order to save costs. For Rosseti, this leads to an increase in the volume of lost income and lost revenue, and for the remaining consumers – to an increase in tariffs, writes Mr. Ryumin. As a result, “the economic preconditions” for further leaving the network are strengthening and “a situation may arise when all the costs of maintaining the network infrastructure will have to be borne by socially significant groups of consumers, small and medium-sized businesses.”

The head of Rosseti proposes to “introduce a ban” on “leaving the boiler,” that is, a partial or complete transition to energy consumption from its own power plant, “without compensating measures.”

According to Mr. Ryumin, consumers switching to their own generation are obliged “not only to pay for measures directly related to changes in the energy supply scheme, but also to compensate for lost income of the network organization.”

At the same time, the head of Rosseti considers it necessary to transmit to consumers “special surcharges” on the price of power, “related to the solution of priority tasks for the country.” Consumers of the wholesale energy market, through surcharges to the price of power, pay, in particular, for the construction of new generation in Crimea, reduction of tariffs in the Far East, new thermal power plants, hydroelectric power plants, nuclear power plants and renewable energy sources. According to estimates by the Council of Energy Producers (which unites generating companies), the share of surcharges in the price of power in 2023 reached 65%, or 581 billion rubles. However, this proposal will not affect the revenue of network companies in any way.

Vladimir Putin wrote a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and gave a resolution: “The proposal is fair, we need to prepare a solution.” Mr. Novak, in turn, instructed the Ministry of Energy and relevant departments to study the issue. Rosseti confirmed to Kommersant that the letter had been sent. They noted that the order is with the government.

“The network monopoly proposes to fight the consequences, and not the reasons, of the growing attractiveness of refusing its services,” say the “Community of Energy Consumers” (unites industrial consumers of electricity). “Such initiatives will not help, but will only aggravate the situation, since punishing efficient consumers with rubles will only strengthen centrifugal tendencies and contribute to the destruction of the unity of the energy system.”

The most extravagant proposal of Rosseti is the initiative to collect a compensation fee from consumers who decide to leave the unified energy system, says Sergei Sasim, director of the Center for Electric Power Research at the Higher School of Economics.

It is unclear how the amount of this compensation is supposed to be calculated, he notes: “Given the fact that the drop in useful supply when an energy-intensive consumer leaves is long-term, it will be impossible to offset the tariff increase with this payment. The economic nature of such payments is highly controversial, given that joining the network did not include such a condition.” The initiative will not solve the problem of consumers leaving the general network, but, on the contrary, will lead to a decrease in the attractiveness of centralized energy supply and will increase the efficiency of building their own generation for new consumers. Finding economic justification for introducing a compensation payment mechanism will be quite difficult, says Sergei Sasim. In his opinion, it would be more reasonable to develop the existing system of differentiation of transmission tariffs by taking into account the characteristics of different groups of consumers.

Polina Smertina, Tatyana Dyatel