OREANDA-NEWS. This is what Oleg Budargin, Chairman of the Management Board of FGC UES, JSC, said at the Tenth Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum during the round-table discussion “Increasing Investment Potential of Siberian Power Industry”. The round-table discussion also featured Alexander Novak, Russian Minister of Energy, Maxim Shirokov, Director General of E.ON Russia OJSC, top executives of other key energy and production companies of Russia, representatives of regional authorities and scientific centers.

Delivering his report “Consolidation of Power grid facilities. The role of grid infrastructure in the Siberian region economy”, Oleg Budargin focused on the factors that hinder the development of power grids. What could help, the FGC leader believes, is synchronization of the investment programs of the power grid companies, coordination of activities of the distribution grid companies and the System Operator on the basis of a unified management structure, as well as large-scale modernization of the grids and establishing a single center of responsibility for their performance.

As Oleg Budargin said, today the power grid industry is facing three challenges from consumers and the government: to form a fair tariff, to increase accessibility, and to ensure the advance development of the grid infrastructure. “Unfortunately, in the current conditions they all contradict to one another. And with the grid assets consolidated, this contradiction will not yet be removed. It will take a whole lot of measures taken systematically to modernize the tariff policy, improve transparency, reliability and efficiency of the power grid facilities of the country”, the FGC leader pointed out.

One of the major problems of the Russian power grid facilities, acc. to Oleg Budargin, is tariff regulation. “A fair tariff should not only be fair towards the customers but also be fairly allocated among the players. For example, today the Siberian federal district faces a situation when IDGC of Siberia receives fewer tariffs than local grid organizations. Depending on the region, IDGC of Siberia receives up to four times less tariff money as compared with other constituent entities of Russia. And, unfortunately, such stories when regional energy commissions make tariff decisions not in favor of backbone companies but to the benefit of doubtful LGOs, happen all the time. This is detrimental for reliability development and investment potential of the industry as the IDGC companies are unable to fully maintain reasonable development of the grid infrastructure, thereby hindering development of regional economies”, said the Chairman of the Management Board of the Federal Grid Company.

One of the central topics of the round-table discussion was attracting investments to the industry. The participants concurred that this challenge could only become a success in the case of long-term planning and providing guarantees to investors. Among the measures of that kind is adoption of long-term RAB regulation by all grid companies.

Speaking of the investment issue, Oleg Budargin stressed there was no efficient mechanism to elaborate investment programs for the grid companies in accordance with the actual regional needs. “For instance, every year FGC and IDGC of Siberia invest about 30 bn. rubles into the development and modernization of the region’s grid facilities. However, the economic growth rates of the region show that is not enough. Therefore, to become more efficient, it is crystal clear today that we need to synchronize development not only between the backbone and distributing networks but with the regions, too. There should be a balance. And it could only be achieved if all of the stakeholders play the game, first of all the regional authorities”, FGC leader stressed.

The Tenth Economic Krasnoyarsk Forum supported by the Government of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Regional Development of Russia and by the Government of the Krasnoyarsk Territory as well, is a crucial event for all the industries of the Russian economy, including the power grid facilities, that helps articulate a whole range of proposals for the purposes of energy saving and handling the issue of enhancing energy efficiency.

The forum features Dmitry Medvedev, Chairman of the Russian Government; Lev Kuznetsov, Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory; and also representatives from the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, federal and regional authorities, administration of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Siberian federal district, development institutes and public corporations, business communities, leading Russian and foreign experts.