Minister says Russia’s power consumption to rise 0.46% in 2019

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (PRIME) -- Russia’s power consumption may rise to 0.46% on the year to 1.081 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2019, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an article published in the Energeticheskaya Politika (Energy Policy) magazine on Friday.

“The electric power sector continued its growth and demonstrated high reliability in 2019. We expect power production in Russia to rise to 1,102 billion kWh and consumption to 1,081 billion kWh, with installed capacity amounting to 253.6 gigawatts (GW),” he said.

Russia launched a large-scale upgrade program of thermal power plants in 2019, under which 15 GW of capacities will be modernized until 2025.

“Under the program, 41 GW of power generation capacities of thermal power plants will be upgraded until 2035, solving an array of macroeconomic tasks like increasing reliability of fixed assets by 16%, attracting up to 1.86 trillion rubles of investment, and forming consistent demand in our industry for production of power generating machines,” Novak said.

Dispatching company System Operator said that Russia’s power production grew by 1.7% on the year to 1.092 trillion kWh in 2018 and consumption by 1.6% to 1.076 trillion kWh.

End