Director, Chairman of the Board, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rosneft Igor Sechin. File photoMOSCOW, Jan 18Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin has proposed reforming the energy market to curb rising electricity prices for industry in Russia, Kommersant writes, citing Sechin's letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among the initiatives are the reduction of capacity payments for idle plants, the exclusion of possible price manipulation by generating companies, as well as the introduction of tariffs for electricity from nuclear power plants, which now sell it at a price formed by thermal power units with higher fuel costs.
Regions were allowed to independently determine electricity tariffs According to Sechin, the balance of economic interests in the energy market has been upset in favor of energy producers and grid companies over the past five years, the newspaper writes, citing a letter. Electricity prices are growing faster than inflation, contrary to the instructions of the president, the author of the letter emphasizes. Sechin proposes to strengthen control over the activities of market participants by the Federal Antimonopoly Service, to prevent the introduction of new surcharges on the price of capacity, and to introduce differentiation of capacity payments depending on the load of stations. He also writes about changing the rules for trading in the day ahead market (DAM) in order to «stop the practice of suppliers implementing pricing strategies associated with reduced competition.» In particular, we are talking about the abolition of the «1.5 Rust mechanism», which allows generators at the DAM to first declare low prices and a large amount of capacity, and then change the applications. A new idea is also proposed — the introduction of tariff regulation of prices for electricity at Rosenergoatom NPP ( REA, part of Rosatom). Now 11 nuclear power plants with a capacity of 29.5 GW sell electricity at the DAM in the «price-taking» mode, that is, they receive the price that is formed at the expense of thermal power plants. Price regulation «will allow eliminating economically unjustified profits from REA through the sale of electricity at prices formed by thermal power plants with a low level of fuel efficiency or high prices for fossil fuels,» the letter says.
The Ministry of Energy wants to cancel the mechanism of nightly overstatement of electricity prices Vladimir Sklyar from VTB Capital. The transfer of nuclear power plants to the tariff can reduce the market payment by about 150 billion rubles a year (about 3.5% of the final price), the analyst calculated. In turn, the REA told the newspaper that the regulators «already have enough mechanisms to regulate the concern's revenue.» energy and capacity, taking into account the emerging practice,» the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation commented. «The President wrote a letter to his assistant Maxim Oreshkin, instructing «to consider and report,» the newspaper writes.
