OREANDA-NEWS  Electricity exports from Russia will fall by 20 percent in 2024, to 8.5 billion kilowatt-hours. Alexandra Panina, a member of the Board of Inter RAO (export-import operator), told about this on the sidelines of the Renewable Energy of Russia conference, Kommersant reports.

The main reason for this result will be a 70 percent decrease in electricity sales to China, to 0.9 billion kilowatt-hours, which will be a historic low for relations between the two countries.

On average, in 2010-2020, Russia supplied its eastern neighbor with three billion kilowatt-hours per year, but now exports are hampered by a shortage of electricity. There is a shortage of capacity in the Far East system, so now supplies remain at extremely low values, and at any moment the flow can be brought to zero.

Panina said that Russia and China have an agreement for the supply of electricity, but the Russian side can no longer fulfill it in full. Kazakhstan helps partially compensate for the failure in China, which has increased imports from Russia.

Sergey Rozhenko from Kept called the situation natural, since the region is experiencing both an increase in demand for electricity and high depreciation of generating capacities. In the near future, the expert pointed out, the situation is unlikely to change.

In September, the head of the Ministry of Energy, Sergei Tsivilev, said that the Russian energy sector was experiencing a lack of funding, and the reserves remaining after the collapse of the USSR had already been exhausted.

Modernization is complicated by the disruption of supplies of domestic equipment. In particular, the Power Machines company admitted that it would not be able to deliver 21 steam power turbines on time, with the help of which it was planned to upgrade a large number of power plants.