Rustam Minnikhanov: Reliable and high quality power supply is the main task for power companies

On 19 April Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov took part in a meeting of the regional Cabinet of Minister on the implementation of the state programme in energy and resource saving in Tatarstan in 2021 and plans for 2022 held by Prime Minister of the republic Aleksey Pesoshin on the sidelined on the Tatarstan Power economy Forum in Kazan.

The Aide to the Russian President Igor Levitin, Russian First Deputy Minister of Economic Development Ilya Torosov also took part in the meeting.

Speaking at the meeting, the regional Minister of Industry and trade Albert Karimov, who gave a keynote speech, said that electricity consumption in Tatartsan reached 32 bn kilowatt/hours in 2021 giving a 10 per cent increase compared to 2020 which was caused by the industrial watering growth. Electricity production increased by 13 per cent up to 27bn kilowatt/hours but there is still electricity shortage in the republic, Karimov said and added that Tatarstan will fully provide itself with electricity in 2025.

He also informed that a substantial growth is expected in the distributed power generation the capacity of which currently is 280Mega Watt ( or 3.5% of the installed power in Tatarstan) and by 2023 it will exceed 1 GW or nearly 13.9% of the installed power.

Speaking at the meeting, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov said that results of 2021 showed the growth of the GRP power consumption by 3.7 %.which showed that the objective of cutting the power consumption by 40 per cent by 2020 was not reached.

He underlined that under current conditions of unprecedented limitations the import replacement of equipment and technologies and especially in power industry was a priority.

Implementation of domestic technologies is a matter of national security as currently about 12 per cent of generating capacities use foreign software, he added and gave examples of enterprises using energy efficiency programs, such as Nizhnekamskneftekhim Petrochemical Company, POZIS, Tatneft Oil Company and others.

Minnikhanov reminded about recent emergency blackouts and said that the main task of power companies is the reliable and quality energy supply.

“On the top of that, one of important issues is energy efficiency in budget organizations and housing and unities sector,” Minnikhanov said and concluded” Energy efficiency is a complex programme  with participation of all levels of power, enterprises and organizations and every citizen. I am sure our coherent systemic work will help to solve the set tasks”.

In the end of the meeting Tatarstan Prime Minister Aleksey Pesoshin handed in awards to winners of competition for best achievements in energy saving.