JSC «ROSSETI»'s General Director Oleg Budargin made an official visit to the Kaliningrad Oblast to examine a number of energy facilities and to conduct a planning brief with the administration of Yantarenergo, a ROSSETI subsidiary, to discuss preparing the region's electricity sector for the upcoming winter.

Due to the special nature of its geographical location, the energy infrastructure in the Kaliningrad Oblast is separated from Russia's Unified Energy System and it is especially important for the area to generate its own power to reliably supply the entire region, which includes generating reserve capacities. This is why Oleg Budargin first inspected the mobile gas-turbine power station which is part of ROSSETI's Mobile Gas-Turbine Power Stations group.

The mobile station is located at the Kaliningrad Combined Heat and Power Plant #1 and can produce 22.5MVA of power for the city's central region if necessary. The station is currently in reserve but can become operational at any moment after the dispatch has given the necessary command. It needs only seven minutes to begin supplying power to the network.

The head of ROSSETI emphasized the importance of timely providing the mobile power station with the necessary amount of fuel for stable and, if it is necessary, long-term operations.

During his visit to the Kaliningrad Oblast, the General Director also supervised the operations of the Pravoberezhnaya Substation and the Podzemnoye Power Distribution Station, he assessed the exterior of the transformer substations located where the areas of international hospitality will be situated during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, talked to the employees at Customer Service Centres and the Yantarenergo Network Control Centre while also inspecting the founding of the Situation Analysis Centre.

During the meeting focused on the preparations for the upcoming 2014-2015 fall-winter season, Oleg Budargin heard reports from Yantarenergo's General Director and Chief Engineer on the progress of the repair and investment programs, on providing departments with an emergency supply and reserve sources of power as well as on the execution of plans to clear and enlarge power line corridors.

The head of ROSSETI was very impressed with Yantarenergo's operations to ensure reliable power supplies to consumers in the Kaliningrad Oblast. In answering questions from reporters, the company's head stated that this trip had several goals. One of them was to garner support for local agricultural producers under the instructions of the Russian President. At the meeting with Kaliningrad Oblast Governor Nikolay Tsukanov, discussions touched on the fact that in these new circumstances, energy workers are ready to assist in the winter preparations, to defer payments for connecting facilities and to create a comfortable working environment.

ROSSETI's head noted that issues that were discussed with the management of the Kaliningrad company included the possibility of creating small generation facilities within the Yantarenergo structure with a total power of 100 megawatts, the issue of lowering losses and increasing the financial stability of the subsidiary as well as consolidating the region's electricity networks. The issue of additional small generation facilities will be put to the decision of the subsidiary's Management Board which will meet in the near future.

Oleg Budargin noted that Yantarenergo's preparations for the winter are progressing better than last year, "The main issue we were looking into today was evaluating the preparations for the winter. All plans are being executed in accordance with their respective schedules. Our Centre for Technical Supervision tells us that the progress of the repair program is looking better than last year. It was executed well last year, but we have put even more efforts into it this year to improve reliability. There is still time before October 1 and we hope that the company will prepare accordingly."

As of today, 62% of the region's annual repair program has been completed with the energy workers having repaired 838.5km of 0.4-330 kV networks while also repairing 339 transformer substations. The power line corridors are being cleared and enlarged according to schedule. A total of 65 hectares have been enlarged while almost 228 hectares have been cleared. Reserve generators have been installed throughout the entire oblast at a distance of 40km from each other.