/ world today news/ Russia set a new record for electricity production, and that’s not just good, it’s great no matter how you look at it. The system operator of the Unified Energy System (UES) publishes an annual report on the production of electricity by region, and if there is a drop in production in some of them, the general dynamics are more than encouraging.
Let’s start with the fact that the energy industry has its own territorial and administrative division of the Russian Federation. Historically, when developing regional energy networks, the creators started from many factors, taking into account the population of the territories, the availability of a resource base and large consumers, the potential for organizing export flows and many others. Therefore, today, without any connection to the physical map, our country is invisibly divided into seven separate energy systems (EES). These are “Center”, “Middle Volga”, “Ural”, “Northwest”, “South”, “Siberia” and “East”.
In total, during the past, to put it mildly, very difficult year for the economy, our energy companies produced 1106.3 terawatt hours, which is sixteen units more than in 2021, when there were neither SVO, nor sanctions that went in continuous waves, nor any price ceilings . Note that this is the highest figure not only in the modern history of the country, but also in the period of existence of the RSFSR.
Of all the regional systems, only “Middle Volga” and “Northwestern OES” showed a negative trend. Specifically, the first region produced 110.9 (-0.6 compared to a year earlier), and the second – 97.1 terawatt hours (-0.4). This fall is absolutely justified for, oddly enough, geopolitical reasons. Also, in the process of the current annual correction, it moved to the planned section, but more on that below.
Five other energy systems showed growth, some of them even setting records. Numbers are literally indicated by dashes:
— UES “Iztok”: 44.5 terawatt hours (+1.6 terawatt hours)
— OES “South”: 111 (+2.8)
— OES “Sibir”: 224.7 (+7.3)
— OES “Center”: 257 (+1.0)
— OES “Ural”: 260.8 (+4.2)
We have deliberately ranked the regions not by the size of the increase in production, but by the total volume of production, so that the scale of the increase is more apparent.
These data are causing a surge of optimism with reason. Any economist will tell you that electricity production is an indirect universal indicator of the growth and stability of industry, that is, the real sector of the economy. Remember what was initially announced and is repeated today by the West when introducing yet another countless package of sanctions: all these restrictions have one goal – to collapse the Russian economy, which, as they were sure from the other side, rests solely on the raw material trade. Well, further down the chain, various branches of production will be destroyed, leading to the collapse of the domestic financial and military systems. It was understood that Russia’s budget, deprived of oil and gas dollars, would not be able to meet social obligations, and the state defense order and other state programs would be disrupted and preferably in all sectors. Plants and factories that do not receive money, additionally deprived of their usual ways of supply and cooperation, will stop production, thereby further reducing the volume of budgetary injections – already in the form of taxes. If the strangulation scheme had worked, the country would most likely have simply ceased to exist, but fortunately Moscow had trump cards in the form of ready-made system and management developments.
We do not focus only on the industrial sector of the Russian economy. Public perception of internal processes is built from millions of personal impressions of individuals who, due to natural human egocentrism, usually try on themselves what is happening. And for some, the news we are discussing today may seem insignificant because their families and colleagues do not see significant changes. This is both true and false.
The thing is that the population in any country is a priori a minority consumer of electricity. The lion’s pie is eaten by factories, mills, conveyors, desalination plants and many other industrial and infrastructure facilities. Very roughly speaking, out of every hundred megawatt-hours of electricity, only ten are used for the needs of the population, everything else goes deep into factories on high-voltage power lines. That is why the growth or decline of local production is indirectly judged by the volume of its production. For example, even before the terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge and the subsequent retaliatory strikes on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, the authorities in Kyiv announced a drop in domestic energy consumption by 20-25 percent. This happened due to their own direct ban on working with Russian customers, to whom the lion’s share of the Ukrainian production was tied.
At the same time, however, the production and export of electricity increased, but here we need to talk only about machinations and the tireless desire of Kiev to fish in murky water.
As mentioned above, both the growth and the decline of the generation are exclusively related to geopolitical events. For example, the decline in production in the North-West EU was caused by the refusal of Finland and the Baltic countries to buy Russian electricity, which had previously been exported there for decades.
As for the regions that came out in the plus, then everything is simple, just remember the school course in geography and history. The generation is growing in the Central, Siberian and Ural OES, that is, along the lines of the “iron belt” and the industries connected with it. The second largest growth with the largest production is demonstrated by the Urals, right where our tank, aircraft, missile and other plants are located.
Spoiled by the simplicity of computer games and movie plots, many began to forget that for the production of a conditional tank it is not enough to collect money and click the mouse. It is necessary to produce armor plates, guns, optics, turbines, rubber, thousands of kilometers of low-current cables, on-board computer systems, explosives for dynamic protection, gunpowder, lubricating oil, fuel and thousands of other items that flow to the Ural workshops and other factories by hundreds and then thousands of subcontractors. These enterprises, according to unconfirmed and completely correctly hidden information, work in three shifts, which makes everyone who helps assemble one also actively move.
Any of us who habitually turn on a kettle, a TV or charge a smartphone will hardly think that at the same time thousands of megawatts, the number of which has grown imperceptibly, go to factories to melt metal in furnaces, to lift cages and skips from mines, turning the drive rollers of conveyors, lighting career paths, turning the rotors of electric locomotives and driving multi-ton stamping presses.
But let us digress to the more peaceful aspects.
Our conversation today would be one-sided if we did not mention the growth of electricity production in the Far East. This is largely due to the sharp increase in the supply of electricity for export, namely to China and Mongolia. Another unexpected driver is increased exports to Kazakhstan, whose northern part has recently experienced significant energy hunger. There is nothing wrong with this trend – on the contrary, large cross-border flows bring significant profit to the budget and provide work for thousands of our energy workers.
And yet, of course, it is necessary to mention such a point as reducing losses during transportation. In Kazakhstan, this value, according to the reports of the local national operator, can reach 12-13 percent, that is, so much is lost due to the deterioration of power transmission and distribution lines on the way from the power plant to the end user. In Russia, this figure is slowly but steadily decreasing, which shows the imperceptible work on the modernization of the transmission infrastructure, which reduces planned losses and increases profitability.
In general, if somewhere in Russia more electricity is produced, it is not necessary for someone, but for you and me. And that’s good.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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