UNDERSTANDING THE BALANCE OF INTERESTS

The Almaty Electric Power Plants company reported to the public.
In the competition of the growth rate of energy production costs and tariffs for consumers, the undisputed victory is for expenses. So, if the total prices of the tariff components grow by 7-8% per year, then the growth rate of the tariff itself for consumers is 4-5%. That is, the growth rate of costs is higher than the growth of tariffs. The difference grows with a cumulative effect, which, unfortunately, leads to a decrease in the investment part. If the growth rates of costs and tariffs were the same, then the volume of investment growth in the energy complex would remain and even increase every year.
Such figures and arguments were announced at the public hearings on the annual report on the fulfillment of investment obligations of JSC AlES over the past year. The traditional meeting of the company’s top management and the public with the participation of representatives of government agencies and the media was held in the conference hall of CHP-1 and also traditionally focused on key energy issues: production efficiency, tariff level, return on investment, ecology. The interests of consumers – one might say with a public bias – were now represented by AREM expert, personal pensioner and public figure Sholpan Aitekova.
Answering questions from members of the public, the energy industry presented and commented on the indicators of the past year in sufficient detail. In particular, as the Chairman of the Board of Almaty Electric Power Plants JSC Nurlan Mukhamed-Rakhimov noted, electricity production in 2013 increased from 5.18 billion kW.A year earlier, to 5.23 billion kWh, the volume of electricity sales also increased from 4.44 billion kWh.up to 4.51 billion kWh. At the same time, the average annual electricity tariff remained unchanged at 7.8 tenge/kWh. As the head of AlES noted, the work aimed at increasing production volumes was completed by 100.8%. The over-fulfillment is due to the fact that part of the work planned for the current year was completed ahead of schedule. All planned environmental measures have been fully implemented. A few energy companies fell short of the plan for the implementation of investment measures aimed at reducing production costs and maintaining production levels, which was due to external factors – long delivery times of equipment and approval of the project in the RSE “Gosexpertiza”.
And thanks to the tender, we managed to save money on the construction of ash dumps.
I must say that economy, efficiency and ecology have become the key benchmarks of the Almaty energy complex in the performance of production tasks over the past year. The company conducted a large-scale modernization and reconstruction of production facilities, which allowed to reduce the level of depreciation of fixed assets, as well as implement a large energy saving program and reduce its own needs. From the point of view of consumers, this is important. Firstly, due to the fact that the reliability and fault tolerance of the system increases. Secondly, the mobilization of domestic resources provides savings, which partially compensates for the gap between selling tariffs and the increase in production costs. For example, only the implementation of the project for the construction of its own water intake of CHP-1 and CHP-2 will eventually save up to 72 million tenge this year. Another example: after clearing the channel bed, the Kapshagai HPP will be able to generate additional electricity for an average of 16 million tons.kWh per year.
But on the other hand, some projects, for example, the transition from cheap coal to more environmentally friendly gas significantly increases the company’s costs. According to the company, coal, even taking into account the high delivery price, which is higher than its cost, turns out to be almost twice as cheap as gas. Production workers are in a vice between the economy and the environment. And if the legislative restriction on tariff growth does not allow to compensate for this gap, then cost optimization for the item “own needs” has now become one of the directions for reducing costs and increasing production and sales volumes. This issue was also discussed during the public hearings. Many people remember that in the early 90s, when power engineers did not have the means to develop production, this eventually led to a crisis in the energy system, interruptions in energy supplies, and rolling blackouts. Today, the public, the energy industry, and the regulator advocate a reasonable balance of interests, in which the energy sector will be able to develop and modernize, and consumers will not massively switch to the category of defaulters due to the unaffordable tariffs. The achievement of the main and permanent goal of JSC AlES: “Light and heat – in every home” should not be achieved “at any, even fatal cost.” And, as the discussion showed, the public “does not thirst for blood.” But he craves an understanding of the item-by-item, detailed expenses. That’s what Mr. Mukhamed-Rakhimov ran to provide for the future. That was the end of it.

Alevtina DONSKIKH, Almaty