Thermal power to dominate Russian energy mix until 2030
The slow growth of renewable technology in Russia will mean that the country will continue to significantly depend on thermal sources for power generation, a report from GlobalData has found.
According to the data and analytics company, thermal power is expected to have the largest share in Russia’s power generation mix by 2030 with 57.8%. However, the report, entitled ‘Russia Power Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2021 – Market Trends, Regulations, and Competitive Landscape’, warned that the country’s large reserves of natural gas and coal have kept it away from embracing renewable sources for power generation.
Rohit Ravetkar, Power Analyst at GlobalData, says: “In 2030, power generation from renewables will contribute a share of only 1.2%. The availability of cheap conventional energy sources has meant renewable just hasn’t been a priority. In fact, Russia has the world’s largest proven natural gas reserves and the second-largest coal reserves.”
“This slow pace of technological transition is one of the major challenges of the Russian power sector. For example, nearly half of the current thermal power plants in the country were commissioned before the 1980s. Further, the factories that supplied equipment to these plants have not seen any modernisation since the fall of the Soviet Union, which now means that most of the power plants in the country are functioning at low efficiency,” he continued.
“There is an urgent need to refurbish the aging plants, and this will provide a huge investment opportunity. A specific opportunity for foreign companies in the power sector is supplying newer energy-efficient technology for power generation from various sources, and pollution-control equipment for thermal power generation plants,” Ravetkar concluded.
