OREANDA-NEWS. April 30, 2009. All-Russia Meeting of Heads of the grid companies was held on 27 April in Moscow. Together with the Ministry for Power Industry and special departments, the heads of generating, grid and energy selling companies summed up the work performed during the previous autumn and winter period. General Director of IDGC of North-West Alexander Kuhmai took part in the work of the meeting.

The winter 2008-2009 became a serious “test for durability” for the sector. This was the first year without "parent guardianship" of RAO UES of Russia and the first year of struggle against the consequences of the world financial crisis. Due to decrease in liquidity, complexities with crediting, falling of energy consumption, the entities of the sector found themselves in a very complicated position.

According to the Minister for Power Industry Sergey Shmatko, as a whole the autumn and winter period 2008-2009 passed "successfully enough", despite of the anxiety observed last year. According to his data, 947 enterprises received certificates of readiness for winter out of 949. "We were instructed to work out the respective proposals to stimulate enterprises for preparation for winter and to implement ways of punishment if they did not receive readiness certificates", Minister said. In his opinion, one of the primary goals in this issue should be a removal of a formal approach when preparing for the winter season and implement "real sanctions to those who will regard this insufficiently crucially ".

Deputy Minister for Power Industry Vyacheslav Sinyugin added that the Ministry for Power Industry was charged with preparing up to 1 June 2009 of a draft normative legal certificate which will determine the uniform procedure of readiness for a new winter season.

The Ministry for Power Industry of Russia considers that there is no call for mass construction of new energy capacities in the country. According to Sergey Shmatko, the main thing is provision of stable operation of the power supply system that is repair of old capacities.

Thus, Sergey Shmatko emphasized that he is concerned with non-execution of investment programs in the power sector. He said that up to 2012, the amount of 8.5 GW of capacity of system-forming facilities should be put in operation.
The Ministry for Power Industry of the Russian Federation expects in 2009 a decrease in energy consumption in Russia by 4.5 percent in comparison with 2008 This was reported by Deputy Minister for Power Industry of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Sinyugin at the All-Russia meeting.

According to his words, the Ministry also expects a decrease in 2009 of electric power generation by 3.8 percents in comparison with 2008. At the same time, according to Deputy Minister, in 2009 3.6 GW of new energy capacities are expected to be put in operation.

V. Sinyugin also emphasized the growth of dynamics of non-payments in the wholesale and retail markets of the electric power. Thus, the cumulative debt in the wholesale market as of 1 April 2009 was RUR 25.4 billion; in the retail market it equaled RUR 76 billion.

Worsening of the economic situation and complexity with attracting credits were named by Deputy Minister among the reasons of debt growth.