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During his visit to Rosseti, the President was introduced to innovative technologies for electric grid facilities, with comments provided by Director General and Board Chairman Pavel Livinsky.

Rosseti is one of the world’s largest electric grid companies. It operates 2.3 million km of electric power lines and 496,000 substations with a transformer capacity of over 773,000 MBA.

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Opening remarks at a meeting on electric power industry development

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon.

Today we will discuss plans for Russia’s electric power industry development and will primarily focus on the objectives of heat generation. It should be noted that the sector’s capacity has improved quite a bit in recent years. Thus, over the last five years, or between 2012 and 2016, heat-generating capacity has increased by 6.7 percent. The industry handles two-thirds of the country’s installed energy capacity or 164 gigawatts. Thermal power stations provide almost 60 percent (57 percent, to be precise) of Russia’s electric power.

Along with the increasing capacity, there are also qualitative changes, which is, of course, good to see. Thanks to new facilities, thermal power plants now have a lower accident rate and provide a more reliable power supply to production facilities, social organisations and residential buildings. The use of state-of-the-art technology ensures compliance with higher environmental standards.

Such positive dynamics in the work of the Russian energy system, as well as the removal of barriers and the optimisation of administrative procedures, have made it possible to significantly simplify and shorten the timeline for connecting to technological networks.

It is a pleasure to note that our country took 10^th place in the Getting Electricity category of the World Bank’s updated Doing Business international ranking, so it is among the world leaders. For comparison, back in 2012 we were in 183^rd place out of 190 countries. Therefore, the upward movement is clearly significant, which is a positive aspect of your work.

Of course, it is necessary to continue developing an infrastructural basis for economic growth and strengthening the social sphere, including increasing the stability and efficiency of thermal power stations.

I would emphasise that the created reserve in the form of new capacities gives us today the opportunity to implement a large-scale long-term programme to modernise Russia's thermal power industry. Its priorities are the withdrawal from use and replacement of outdated, inefficient equipment; the introduction of resource-saving, environmentally friendly technologies; and the development of capacities based on modern facilities with higher reliability and efficiency.

It is necessary to link these plans with programmes to develop Russia’s territories and key industries and provide reserves for economic growth. And, importantly, investment in renewing generation should cut operating costs, and therefore, I want to emphasise this, the capital costs should not fall on the shoulders of consumers, businesses, citizens, or social and state institutions. In other words, it is necessary to strictly follow the current procedure for establishing energy tariffs.

On that note, I will conclude my opening remarks and pass the floor to Mr Novak, Minister of Energy. Then I will ask Mr Artemyev to speak, and we will have a discussion.

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