Wind power in Russia has serious boost recently. The 2017 auction showed the serious intentions of both state companies and foreign investors to develop this energy technology in Russia. The main players and investors of the market today: Fortum-Energia LLC is a joint company of Fortum JSC (member of RAWI) and MC Rusnano, with their technological partner – the leader of the global wind energy market, Vestas (member of RAWI), JSC VetroOGK , Managed by JSC “OTEK”, a subsidiary of SC Rosatom, who selected as the technology partner the Dutch company Lagerwey and finally PJSC Enel Russia, a subsidiary of the Italian energy company Enel Spa, which selected Siemens – Gamesa (member of RAWI) for its projects in Russia. All three manufacturers of wind power equipment intend to comply with the legal requirements for local contant in Russia (44% in equipment from 2019) and offer their up-to-date wind turbine models to their technology partners and the market.
The created situation, as one can guess, creates competition in this market, which is illustrated by the events during the auction’2017, when Fortum-Energia LLC reduced the price for some of its bids by more than 30%. It is not difficult to guess that the price proposals of wind power generator companies to their investors and other buyers will also be different.
The prospects for change and barriers to the development of wind power in Russia have also become the focus of attention of international organizations. Recently, the World Wind Energy Association published a study “The Prospects of the Wind Energy Market in Russia,” funded by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and prepared by St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Peter the Great (SPbPU) and the Russian Association of the Wind Industry (RAWI).
If in the normative and technical regulation of the production of components for wind generators in the first approximation everything seems to be clear – the standards of industrial production both in Russia and in other countries as a whole are similar, then in the acts of regulating the construction and operation of wind parks, not everything stimulates their development. Regulatory and technological regulation in Russia was created many years ago and was oriented towards traditional power generation technologies, therefore, the objects of changes in the power generation and town planning legislation should be the elimination of redundant and inappropriate requirements in terms of the specifics of RES facilities (download pdf):
- To change the classification of wind parks as unique objects in the Town Planning Code.
- Eliminate the requirements for the transfer of agricultural lands to industrial lands in the Land Code of the Russian Federation.
- It is necessary to change the approach of the SOE for safety of the wind farm.
- Changing the reservation requirement in the power delivery scheme when designing the wind farm
- It is necessary to review the requirements for commercial electricity metering.
- It is necessary to regulate the terms of the primary and secondary consideration of the WEC project when it is agreed with the Network Organization and the System Operator
- Change of approaches of network organizations towards execution of the law.