RBC Daily: "Underwater gigawatts for Japan"
Russia may return to its plans for energy exports via ocean floor
The tragedy in Japan has prompted Russia to return to its shelved projects to supply Japan with electricity. It may take two years to carry them out. Electricity capacity would amount to about six gigawatts.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin talked about general assistance for disaster-plagued Japan in his speech at the conference in Yuzno-Sakhalinsk on developing the fuel-and-energy sector in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. "We are prepared to provide assistance and to guarantee the reliable distribution of energy – gas, coal and oil -- and also to plan a project on energy transport from Sakhalin. We considered a similar project in the past – I'm talking about the cable," Putin said (quoted from the NTV television network).
The Far Eastern energy system has not been adequate in the past, but things have improved after we started the Bureisk Hydroelectric Power Station (BHS).
We have plans to build the Nizhne-Bureisk and Ust-Srednekansk power stations, the first stage of the Yakutsk GRES (regional HPS), the Sakhalin GRES and the Thermal Power Station (TPS) in Sovetskaya Gavan (Soviet Harbour). Excess electricity can be exported to Japan and other countries.
The construction of a coal-based TPS in the city of Sovetskaya Gavan is part of the project to export energy to Japan. Plans call for a 1000 MW TPS on the Khabarovsk Territory's mainland. ES Vostoka drafted this project under the investment programme on the energy bridge between the Khabarovsk Territory and Sakhalin. The tentative cost estimate is about 47 billion roubles. The TPS will use 2.3 million tons of coal from the Elgin deposit per year.
ES Vostoka is also planning to build another 1000 MW TPS in the city of Shakhtyorsk on Sakhalin and to connect the two stations by an underwater electric 500 kW cable. In the future the cable will be extended to the extreme point of Sakhalin where it will be linked with an underwater cable stretching to the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and Honshu.
The issue of electricity exports was discussed when UES Rossii still existed. The plan provides for the construction of a 4000 MW Vapour-Gas Unit and the laying of an underwater cable to Japan. In 2000 the project was estimated at 300 billion roubles but now it could cost 500 billion. Last week Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin explained to President Medvedev that it is possibile to export six gigawatts of electricity to Japan.
According to expert estimate, it will take two or three years to build the new stations and lay the underwater cable.
Maria Tsereteli
