Companies lining up for more expensive wind power for sake of image - Rosatom
OBNINSK. Sept 8 (Interfax) - Companies are willing to pay more for wind power for the sake of their image, although its carbon footprint is virtually comparable to that of nuclear power, the first deputy CEO of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, Kirill Komarov said at the Future of Energy sessions organized by the Global Energy Association.
"It's increasingly no longer all the same to people where electricity comes from. These are, probably to a lesser degree, Russian trends. [...] I want to tell you that even in terms of economics, paradoxical things are already happening. We built Rosatom's first wind farm of 150 MW, the largest in Russia, this year during the pandemic. We have a queue of those wanting to pay at least 10% more than the price on the day-ahead market for the generated electricity," Komarov said.
At this point, this is more of a trend among companies with foreign ownership, he said. "They are always the pioneers, Nestle, Mars and so on. But they are currently prepared to pay 10% more for the sake of image, for the sake of writing on the label of their product that their product is made with minimization of carbon footprint. And it's obvious that they're not engaging in charity, it's obvious that they will then factor these 10% into the price for which they will sell this product to people. But this also means that people are willing to pay for this," Komarov said.
"If we lived in conditions of actual information being available to people, and not myths and fairy tales, it would be clear that today nuclear energy has the lowest carbon footprint, virtually comparable to wind," Komarov said.
He said nuclear energy is currently feeling confident in Europe and in the world in general. "Production of nuclear power has been growing in the world's energy balance for seven consecutive years. It increased by 3.7% last year and 53 reactors with combined capacity of more than 56 GW are currently being built in the world," Komarov said.
"And I'll tell you, with the exception of Germany and a few other small European nations, there are no countries in the world that would say no, we will never again build nuclear plants. On the contrary, this movement is seizing ever more and more regions. For example, literally a short time ago the reactor start-up of the first unit of the Belarusian NPP began, in a country where there was never nuclear energy. And we have very many such countries, such as Bangladesh, Turkey and others," Komarov said.