VITALY KOROLEV: RUSSIA HAS FORMED AN INTEGRATED COMPETITION DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM
Deputy Head of FAS Vitaly Korolev pointed out: “Adopting the National Competition Development Plan by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2017 generated a new round of a pro-competitive reform at both the federal and the regional levels. It was confirmed by the State Council on priorities in the work of the subjects of the Russian Federation to support competition in Russia”.
Vitaly Korolev said that the pro-competitive basis of the wholesale electric power market led to a nearly zero growth of prices during the five-year period on the “day ahead” market – the main competitive platform for wholesale sales of electric power.
Discussing the outcome of joint efforts with the Ministry of Energy in 2017, he emphasized applying benchmark costs for electric power suppliers.
“Benchmarks are a prospective method of tariff regulation. The main objective is to stimulate energy suppliers to enhance efficiency,” explainedVitaly Korolev. “FAS will continue working in this direction. In 2019 we plan to launch pilot projects to transfer grid companies to benchmarks”.
Another aspect of the joint work is devising a new “Road Map” designed to develop competition in the electric power industry in view of the Order of President of the Russian Federation on the basic areas of the national policy towards competition development.
Deputy Head of FAS also described the efforts to restrain the tariff growth. He drew attention to three regions: the Kurgan region and the Republic of Buryatia and Karelia.
“Thanks to this work, electric power tariffs for the population of the Kurgan region were decreased by 19% from 1 July 2017, and it should be pointed out that tariffs in that region were the highest in the Urals Federal District. On 1 September 2017 low-voltage consumer tariffs in Buryatia went down by 25%”, informed Vitaly Korolev. “Through joint efforts of the Government of Karelia, FAS and the Ministry of Energy on verifying all elements of the electric power tariffs, we managed to reduce its costs by nearly 20% 1 January 2018. Reducing the electric power tariffs increases investment attractiveness of regions and competitiveness of the goods produced there.”
Finally, Deputy Head of FAS reported on systematic and intensive work of the antimonopoly body and the Ministry of Energy. He said that in 2017 the Russian Federation moved up to the 10th position in the “Doing business” global ranking under the “Grid Connection” indicator”.
“Here Russia “overhauled” many advanced countries with high indicators for the level of income and energy infrastructure development”, highlightedVitaly Korolev.