Russian nuclear industry and wind power

According to Kommersant, a Russian business daily, Rosatom, the Russian state-owned corporation specialising in manufacturing of nuclear equipment and construction of nuclear plants, including in Turkey and many other countries is also on the way to dominate Russian wind power market.

In this year's national tender for subsidized renewable capacity, Rosatom's subsidiaries,  particularly VetroOGK (Wind Wholesale Generation Company), posted bids for 610 MW of wind farms to be built in 2018-2020 (150 MW in 2018, 200 MW in 2019, and 260 MW in 2020). The total cost of the projects is RUB 83 bn (USD 1.24 bn at the current rate). It is unclear from the article whether Rosatom is the only bidder for wind capacity this year, but even a brief look at the tender website largely confirms this suspicion.

While the submission deadline is in early in June, significant unclaimed quotas remain: 270 MW of solar (highly popular in previous years – see table below), 513 MW of small hydro, and some 900 MW of wind. According to an unnamed source, potential investors are trying to "sabotage the tender", protesting against the the planned reduction in the target return on investment (that determines electricity purchase price) from 14% to 12% and hoping to make the government to postpone the reduction.

Results of renewable capacity tenders in Russia, 2013–2015. Source: Administrator of Trade System.

The equipment localisation requirements in the tender are relatively lenient now, but are going to become harder to meet by 2020, when they effectively stipulate domestic manufacturing of core components of wind technology – blades and/or generators. Therefore Rosatom seeks "technology partners" among global equipment manufacturers and potential suppliers among Russian companies.