Government instructs relevant agencies to develop plans for greater
energy efficiency.
Vladimir Putin paid a visit to the Lenin All-Russia Electrical
Engineering Institute yesterday. Founded back in 1921, it is the leading
research centre in the field of electrical equipment. As part of the visit, Putin
was supposed to take a look at sophisticated units and instruments and even
watch some experiments with electricity that demonstrate how energy facilities
can be made safer.
After all, this was the subject of the meeting of the Council of chief designers,
leading scientists and experts. But at the last moment, the Prime Minister
canceled his tour of the Institute and made a beeline straight for the meeting.
To be fair, he had arrived late and had a meeting scheduled with Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh that very evening, so the Institute's workers just had
to settle for journalists as their audience.
As a result of the meeting, the government instructed the relevant
agencies to prepare plans for enhancing energy efficiency and energy safety,
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists after the meeting. "In Russia, energy
consumption is 2.5 times higher than the world average, and 3.5 times higher
than in developed European countries. We lose about 50% simply by transporting
heat. So we are really just heating the air," Ivanov told his listeners. During
the meeting, Putin called for efforts to ensure a new level of safety and
reliability in the power industry.
As Ivanov explained, "Based on the results of the meeting, the Prime
Minister issued instructions to develop proposals to ensure energy safety, and he
ordered each and every sector of industry to present specific plans for
improving the situation."
Notably, measures will be developed to improve energy efficiency in the construction
industry. According to Ivanov, however, it will be a long haul: "It'd be
impossible to make all the buildings energy-efficient overnight, but new
standards definitely should be introduced for new buildings."
Putin, for his part, emphasised that the enterprises shouldn't be
overloaded with excessive prescriptions: "We're consistently removing administrative
barriers in the economy and we certainly should not be creating new ones."
A programme for energy conservation and energy efficiency in all the economic
sectors is currently being developed at the federal level. By 2020, it will have
received 10.459 trillion roubles (excluding the construction of renewable
energy generation facilities) in financing. The Energy Ministry will oversee
the programme and almost all the ministries and agencies will serve as governmental
customers under the programme.
Andrei Biryukov
