Page 19 - bne_newspaper_September_08_2017

Eastern Europe
September 8, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 19
made on a parity basis, with Fortum also contrib- uting the know-how.
Fortum has already got the ball rolling with Rus- sia’s first ever wind farm, a 35MW facility that is being constructed in the Ulyanovsk region in the Volga basin and is due to be completed by the end of this year. Other prospective sites for wind farms are near the cities of Rostov, also in the Volga basin, and Murmansk on the northwestern coast, as well as Krasnodar in Siberia and the southern Stavropol region.
More investment into renewable energy could come, as the head of nanotechnology agency Rosnano and long-time state utility bureaucrat Anatoly Chubais — also speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum — suggested forming a fund for alternative energy development in the Far East.
The proposed fund would guarantee a return on investment in building alternative generation facilities, a problem which currently is left unad- dressed for the Far East.
While the Russian government has said it would like to diversify its energy sources and make more use
of renewables, the cash-strapped Kremlin heavily cut its planned 2015-2021 budget spending plans for renewable projects at the start of this year.
Previously the government planned to auction 3.351GW worth of licences but has cut that to 250MW under the reduced plans, while the num- ber of planned hydropower stations has been halved to 425MW of planned new capacity.
Solar power investment was the only part of the programme that was expanded by 240MW to 1.759 GW, Prime-TASS reported.
The reduction is bad news for investors. Stepan Zvyagintsev, CEO of Italian power company Enel’s Russian division, sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich in February warning that that the cuts will “inevitably decrease the number of possible investors in Russia’s wind en- ergy sector” and will “result in a significant decel- eration of the industry”.
RusHydro reported its 2Q17 results last week, with revenues slipping -3% y/y, although Ebitda added +2% y/y. Leverage stood at a comfortable level of 0.8x net debt (ND)/Ebitda.
SIGN UP FOR
A FREE DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION TO BNE’S MAGAZINE
Sign up to bne IntelliNews’ monthly e-magazine for free, delivered to your inbox each month.
We cover business, economics, finance and politics of the 30 countries of emerging Europe and central Asia.
While other news outlets report on what is happening, we look at why with our in-depth analysis.
To get the e-version of our monthly magazine fill out the form here.
Or go to bne.eu/welcome to see samples of this and other products.