Hydropower of Russia: Prospects and urgent problems

Abstract

At present (according to the 1993 results) the share of hydroelectric stations in the electric power complex of Russia with respect to capacity amounted to 21.6% and with respect to production to 17.4%, which corresponds to 43.4 million kW installed capacity and 175 billion kWh production.The "Concept of the Energy Policy of Russia Under New Economic Conditions," developed by the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and approved by the Russian Ministry of Fuel and Energy (Mintop6nergo) and government of the Russian Federation, which was published in mid-1992, and the "Draft of the Electric Power Program of Russia for the Period up to 2010" developed on its basis in 1993 by the Electric Power Committee of Mintop6nergo are supposed to keep hydropower at about such a level. Both the Concept and Draft were based on the fact that Russia's economy needs a considerable time to recover the increasing rate of its development. Several variants of developing the economy were examined and these variants need electric power production. At the same time the authors of the indicated documents assumed that a substantial decrease of energy intensity (energy/GNP ratio) will occur. An analysis of the development of electric power in countries of the far abroad showed that considerable capital investments to reduce the energy intensity of production were needed for getting out of the energy crisis of the 1970s. Their problem of saving energy was solved as the main one when getting out of the energy crisis. We are supposed to solve the problem of saving energy simultaneously with getting out of the general economic crisis with practically no financing of this problem. This task is impracticable. Thus, during the past two years with a general decline of production the energy intensity of almost all enterprises began to increase rapidly and increased by at least 15%. It is not ruled out that this 15% includes also the unaccounted for squandering of electric power in the present environment of impunity. This circumstance complicated still more the economic situation in the industrial sector, the more so under conditions of equalization of domestic and world prices for fuel and regulated electric power rates.The aforementioned documents, devoting sufficient attention to hydropower, nevertheless did not plan its due development, but reduced its participation in electric power production at the 2010 level to 13.3% (Concept) and to 15.3-16.7% (Draft) versus the 1993 level of 17.4%.These suggestions could be the result Of an economic analysis not taking into account the real dynamics of price changes in the country, which sooner or later will lead us to parity of prices on the world market.An analysis of a comparison of the relative effectiveness of constructing thermal and hydroelectric stations with consideration of the dynamics of price changes on the domestic market is given in the work "Hydropower of Russia Under New Economic Conditions" published in 1994 by the joint-stock company Gidroproekt (State Planning, Su...

Simulation of reservoir influences on annual and seasonal streamflow changes for the Lena, Yenisei, and Ob' rivers

“…2. The average cost of hydropower in the Soviet Union in 1990 was 0.15 kopecks per kWh [ Platov , 1995], and we use this value as our mean annual price in hydropower, Pmean .…”