Board of the Russian electricity transmission company FGC UES has approved a draft investment programme for 2014-2019. According to the basic scenario, the adjusted investment programme may amount to 675.9 billion roubles (about $20.5 billion) up to 2019, FGC Director for External Communications Dmitry Klokov told Itar-Tass.
The basic scenario to be referred to the Ministry of Energy suggests commissioning of 20,442 kilometres of power lines and 71,141 MVA of power.
The company has revised the amount and structure of financing sources but is intending to possibly stick to the planned commissioning volumes with a complex of measures, including revision of investment priorities, cost optimization, reduction of unit costs.
Renovation of fixed assets is the major item on the programme in an amount of 185.28 billion roubles ($5.6 billion). In particular, the programme stipulates an allocation of $3.9 billion for technological connection, $3.2 billion for grid development, $1.35 billion for implementation of state programmes, $1.7 billion for power distribution schemes, and $146.8 billion for development of electric grid infrastructures in Eastern Siberia and Russia’s Far East.
“Despite the tariff freeze, FGC is planning to decelerate amortization increase and better supply quality over the period, at the same time remaining highly stable financially,” Klokov said.
FGC UES is the world’s largest public electricity grid company, the monopoly operator of Russia’s unified electricity transmission grid system. The company manages over 131,000 kilometres of power lines and has a total transformation capacity of more than 334,800 MVA. Russian Grids is FGC’s major shareholder with a 80.6 percent stake.