OREANDA-NEWS. November 16, 2007. Murmansk Region Governor Yuri Yevdokimov and RAO UES Management Board Chairman Anatoly Chubais have signed an Agreement on Cooperation in the Development of the Murmansk Region's Electricity Sector.

The Agreement seeks to ensure reliable supply of electricity both to industrial customers and households, increase the network throughput capacity, and create the conditions for new user connections to the grids. This will help prevent power shortages in the most important areas of the region.

In the next few years, several large industrial facilities are expected to be completed in the region. Specifically, among the projects to be implemented is construction of an ore beneficiation plant at a platinoid deposit in the settlement of Revda, oil and coal transshipment port complexes on the West bank of the Kola Bay, and a container transshipment terminal. All these projects will require new power capacity.

The Agreement signed today envisages a balanced development of the generation capacity, grid facilities, and dispatch infrastructure of the region's energy system. The HPP-4, HPP-5, and HPP-12 will be modernized, and a new power unit will be brought on line at the Murmanskaya CHPP of OAO "TGC-1". The region's capacity will increase by over 570 MW.

Among the projects to be implemented in the region's transmission sector is the 330 kV "Murmashinskaya" substation, a 330 kV switchgear at the "Monchegorsk" substation, and the second 330-kV line between the Kolskaya NPP and the energy system of the Leningrad Region. The Agreement also provides for the construction and modernization of over 272 km of trunk transmission lines. In the region's distribution system, it is planned that transformer substations will be built with an aggregate capacity of 1,286 MVA and 401 km of transmission lines.

Under the Agreement, the total amount of funds to be spent on the projects will be in excess of RUB64.7 billion, of which RUB46.2 billion and RUB18.5 billion will be invested in the power generation sector and the power grid infrastructure, respectively.