Russian hydropower generator HydroOGK announced September 26 it will seek 42.5 billion rubles (US$1.7 billion) in state funding to build the 1,410-MW Mokskaya hydroelectric complex, part of a new public-private industrial development in southern Russia’s Buryatiya Republic.
HydroOGK said it would cost 170 billion rubles (US$6.8 billion) to build the complex on the Vitim River in Buryatiya near the Mongolian border. The hydro generator estimated a fourth of the total investment would consist of capital from the Russian Federation’s investment fund, National Agency for Direct Investment (NADI).
The hydro complex includes the 1,200-MW Mokskaya hydro project and the 210-MW Ivanovskaya re-regulating project. It would be part of the Comprehensive Development of Zabaykalye (or Transbaikal) investment project in Buryatiya and neighboring Chita Province.
The Zabaykalye project is to be funded and run by a public-private partnership including Hydro-OGK, Russian investment company IFC Metropol, industrial electricity customers, and the governments of Buryatiya and Chita.
It is being developed on the same model as a venture in the Lower Angara region that includes the 3,000-MW Boguchanskaya project on the Angara River (HNN 9/24/07) and one in the South Yakutia region that includes the 1,600-MW Kankunskaya project on the Timpton River. (HNN 9/13/07) Both of those public-private ventures are being partly financed by NADI.
In addition to eliminating an electricity deficit in the region, HydroOGK said development of the Mokskaya complex would open the possibility for synchronization of the power systems of Siberia and the Russian Far East.
Earlier in September, HydroOGK and NADI signed an agreement to invest 110 billion rubles (US$4.39 billion) in public-private partnerships to develop 10 conventional hydropower and pumped-storage projects and eight small hydro projects in Russia’s Southern Federal Region by 2020. HydroOGK said projects would be in republics of Dagestan (HNN 4/20/07), Kabardino-Balkaria (HNN 4/27/07), Karachayevo-Cherkessia (HNN 1/10/07), North Osetia-Alanii (HNN 8/20/06), and Krasnodar Kray.
HydroOGK said it plans to develop 13,300 MW of hydropower to meet growing demand in the Southern Federal Region. It said it currently is the most important investor in the region, developing more than a half-dozen projects.
