Rosseti opposed the free sale of electric grid capacity between consumers

As Kommersant found out, Rosseti (MOEX: FEES) opposed the free sale of electrical grid capacity between consumers. The initiative could help reduce the volume of unpaid “network reserve”, which Rosseti has been striving for for many years. But the state holding admitted that some consumers will have nothing to sell, since other clients have connected to unloaded power centers. Business believes that the consumer, if the capacity he paid for is lost, has the right to receive “adequate compensation.”

Rosseti does not want to allow industrial enterprises to transfer unloaded power grid capacity to other consumers. “Creating the possibility of redistributing the power of energy receiving devices built at the expense of PJSC Rosseti or other network companies, and not the consumer, is not fair,” says the draft conclusion (Kommersant has the document) following a meeting of the expert council chaired by the first Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Energy Valery Seleznev.

The Ministry of Energy proposed allowing industry to share free power grid capacity with other consumers at the end of last year (see Kommersant, November 17, 2023). The latest version of the project includes an amendment stating that redistribution of power at the power center is possible “only if there is a technical possibility of a technological connection (TP).”

The Ministry of Energy’s proposal would help solve the problem of unused network reserves, which Rosseti has been complaining about for several years. According to the company, from 2011 to 2021, Rosseti carried out technical connection of 122 GW of the declared consumer capacity, with an actual increase in consumption of only 9.5 GW. All consumers pay for the maintenance of idle capacity. As Kommersant reported, last year the head of Rosseti, Andrei Ryumin, wrote about this to Vladimir Putin, proposing to introduce for new consumers (more than 670 kW) payment for electricity transmission services not based on consumption, but based on maximum power (take-or- pay).

However, at the expert council, representatives of Rosseti admitted that the actual amount of “extra” power on the consumer side may be less than in the TP acts. “The applicant once asked for 30 MW, but Rosseti sees that he has been consuming 7 MW for ten years. Of course, other consumers were also connected to this power center in order to optimally load the network,” said Deputy Head of Rosseti Alexey Molsky (Kommersant has a recording of the meeting on February 5). He noted that when ordering power, the consumer paid “only for his line,” and “all other consumers in the tariff paid for the transformer and reconstruction,” which means that the transformer “formally belongs to the entire community.” From July 1, consumers over 150 kW will begin to pay not only for the “last mile”, but also for the expansion and reconstruction of infrastructure. Rosseti and the Ministry of Energy did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

“If, based on the results of checking the technical feasibility of redistributing the free part of the maximum power, it turns out that there is no reserve, then consumers who have paid in good faith for the creation of this reserve will inevitably have a fair request for adequate compensation for costs,” Kommersant was told in the “Community of Energy Consumers” (unites industrial consumers).—In addition, there will be no idle interest in how and why the network monopoly disposed of this resource.”

Information about the absence of an actual reserve and that it is not an obstacle to new connections calls into question the validity of the very concept of payment for a “network reserve,” which Rosseti has been lobbying for for many years, emphasizes Sergei Sasim, director of the Center for Research in the Electric Power Industry at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He notes that redistribution of maximum power is one of the regulatory types of TP, and all facilities built to connect consumers are the property of the network company.

But the possibility of redistributing power is not a transfer of assets, but only a concession of the right to consume more in favor of another person, the expert clarifies. If the consumer’s refusal to redistribute is due to the lack of technical feasibility, since the reserve is occupied by other connections, “the question arises of how the obligations to guarantee maximum power are fulfilled.”

Polina Smertina