The strength of the alternating current – Newspaper Kommersant No. 5 (7450) dated 01/13/2023
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The “system operator” wants to take into account in the program for the development of the Russian energy system the export of electricity to the EU, despite its stop after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. Exports to Finland and the Baltic States in 2023 could amount to 6 billion kWh, or almost half of all possible supplies. Monopoly electricity exporter Inter RAO “does not exclude a recovery” of sales to the EU in the future. According to analysts, taking into account the unlikely volume of exports is necessary to increase the “paper” demand for energy capacity in order to keep its price high and not shut down idle power plants.
The “system operator” (SO, power system dispatcher) can take into account in the scheme and program for the development of Russian power systems (SIPR) for 2023-2028 the volume of electricity exports from the Russian Federation to the EU, although supplies there have not been made since the spring of 2022 due to the impossibility of cash settlements against the backdrop of sanctions. The export forecast is based on data from Inter RAO (which has a monopoly on the export of electricity), the document says.
According to the document, the expected volume of supplies from the Russian Federation to Finland in 2023 can be up to 4 billion kWh, and to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – 2.4 billion kWh. Moreover, the total volume of foreign supplies this year will drop to 12.9 billion kWh, which is slightly higher than the figure for the pandemic 2020. Thus, the estimated export to the EU is almost 49% of the total sales in the current year.
Estimated deliveries to Finland from 2023 to 2028 inclusive will amount to 24 billion kWh. Exports to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia will go until 2025 and in total will reach about 6.7 billion kWh, the document says. From 2026, exports to the Baltics will stop, which is likely due to the intention of these countries to leave the BRELL energy ring (which unites Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).
SO told Kommersant that, according to the rules, “data of the export-import operator” are used in the SIPR. The technical possibility for deliveries “is retained in full in all traditional directions of export-import,” they say, noting that “during the development of the C&D, the balance security of proposals in terms of export-import volumes is checked, which requires their inclusion in the program document for the long-term development of the Unified Energy System Russia”.
Inter RAO told Kommersant that they “do not rule out” the restoration of exports to the Baltic states and Finland “in the medium term.”
Finland and the Baltic States have always been the largest and most profitable sales destination for Inter RAO. In 2021, the company delivered a record volume of 12.9 billion kWh (about 60% of total supplies) there. According to Kommersant’s estimates, in January-May 2022, Russia managed to sell up to 5 billion kWh to the EU.
Without deliveries to the EU, Russia is left with only six export destinations: Belarus, Georgia, South Ossetia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. This year, Inter RAO plans to sell only 6.4 billion kWh there. The lion’s share of supplies will go to China, where Russia wants to sell 4 billion kWh. In second place is Kazakhstan, where Inter RAO hopes to sell 1.25 billion kWh. The total volume of deliveries to Georgia and Mongolia is just over 1 billion kWh.
“Export deliveries in a number of areas are unlikely, but taking them into account in the R&D as demand increases the price, guarantees the selection of additional capacity in the future and its full payment, even if it is idle,” say the Community of Energy Consumers (which unites industrial consumers of electricity ). It would be logical, they believe, to transfer “these risks and the financial burden of paying for downtime from consumers to the author of the forecasts – the operator of export-import deliveries.”
The resumption of exports to the EU countries is an unlikely scenario, contrary to public statements by representatives of the authorities and energy companies of the EU countries, independent analyst Yuri Melnikov believes. The forecast can hardly be taken seriously, since it does not reflect the current political situation, Alexei Presnov, head of the Energy Analysis Agency, agrees. Perhaps this is due to the unwillingness of regulators to complicate the picture of the development of the industry in the energy system of the North-West (which includes the Kaliningrad, Leningrad and Pskov regions), where after the stop of exports and the commissioning of the Belarusian nuclear power plant, a significant surplus of energy capacities is possible, which will cause serious problems for the generation of the region with loading, the analyst believes.
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