Russia has eight hydropower plants, six pumped-storage plants in pipeline - Energy Ministry

SOCHI. Nov 21 (Interfax) - Eight new hydropower plants (HPP) and six pumped-storage power plants (PSPP) might be built in Russia, the director of electricity development at the Energy Ministry, Andrei Maximov said at Atomexpo 2022

"Eight HPP projects and six PSPP projects are now in development and will certainly be implemented," Maximov said.

The Energy Ministry said last year that Russia would need at least 5 GW of PSPP capacity from 2035 through 2050. "We believe that we can no longer tolerate [their absence]. We have approximate sites. We believe that this [should be done] beyond 2035, around 2035-2050," Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov said at the time.

He said the ministry would "like it to be faster," but understands the "price of the issue and the influence on the market."

Shulginov was referring to the first price zone and sites that were previously surveyed. He said there were no sites in Siberia yet, "but the objective has been set."

The Zagorskaya PSPP-2 is supposed to be launched in the foreseeable future. RusHydro built this 840 MW plant under a capacity supply agreement. The first and second phases of construction were supposed to be completed in 2013 and 2014, respectively, but there was an accident at the plant in 2013. Soil erosion caused the plant building to subside, resulting on flooding of the turbine room and other areas.

RusHydro, which had spent about 70 billion rubles on the plant's construction in 2008-2013, received an insurance payout of 8.2 billion rubles for the incident and budgeted 5 billion rubles for restoration work in 2017-2021. The company is expected to present plans for the restoration process in 2022 and the plant is scheduled for launch in January 2024.