Moscow - Technopromexport (TPE), an engineering division of state corporation Rostec, will build thermal power plants in Crimea, business daily Vedomosti reported on Aug. 21.
The paper reported a source close to TPE as saying that the Russian Energy Ministry invited the company to build power plants on the Black Sea peninsula.
Crimea does not have sufficient generating capacity of its own and has to import electricity from Ukraine.
The state corporation’s participation in this project was agreed at a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov on Aug. 13, an employee of a power company said. Such a meeting was prepared, an Energy Ministry official said, adding that he had heard that TPE would build Crimean power plants but that he had not seen the decision in writing.
TPE will be the investor in the project, perhaps with the support of state banks, with which preliminary consultations have already been held, a source close to the state banks said, the paper reported. This refers to Sberbank and VTB, the power company source and Energy Ministry official said.
A spokesman for VTB confirmed that this issue has been discussed, but said that it is still early to talk about specific decisions, the paper reported. A spokesman for Sberbank, and representatives of the Energy Ministry, Rostec and TPE declined to comment.
TPE will probably repay the loans and recover its investment in the project at the expense of corporate electricity consumers in other Russian regions, the paper reported an Energy Ministry official as saying. The exact plan for recovering investment has not been approved yet, but consumers will apparently have to pay more for capacity, the official said.
The investment will probably be recovered over 15 years with a certain return, possibly the same 14 percent that is factored into capacity supply agreements. The Energy Ministry has already drafted the relevant legislative amendments, but the final decision is up to the government, the paper reported the ministry official as saying.
