OREANDA-NEWS. October 14, 2014. The Government of the Russian Federation (No.1949-r Order) approved the Action Plan (Road Map) on “Implementing a Targeted Model of the Heating Energy Market”.

The Action Plan (Road Map) is passed to reform the heating energy market, particularly, by liberalization and, as a consequence, deregulation of prices for heating energy.

“The need to reform the heating and electric power industry ripened quite a long time ago. Worn-out infrastructure and lack of investment attractiveness in the sector threatens of a serious crisis in heating supply in the near future”, pointed out the Head of FAS Department for Control over Electric Power Industry, Vitaly Korolyov. “Thus, the Government of the Russian Federation approved the Road Map, the main idea of which is increased investment attractiveness of the industry, first of all, through deregulating the market of heating energy”.

This process implies the need to strengthen other forms of control instead of government regulation of prices (tariffs). The Road Map provides for: adopting the Rules for non-discriminatory access in heating supply, particularly, in connecting to the heating supply systems; determining specifics of antimonopoly regulation and control over heating supply; improving the mechanisms of disclosing information by heating supply entities; and other measures related to industry deregulation.

Adopting the Road Map means that even such natural monopolies as heating suppliers are moving towards deregulation, using the methods of antimonopoly regulation and control. In this context the decision of the Government of the Russian Federation of 7th August 2014 to improve the law on natural monopolies is very important. For instance, FAS devised a draft law designed to regulate relations in natural monopolies, which accounts for the latest trends of developing sectors of natural monopolies and the best international practices in this field.