The Energy Infrastructure Accessibility Improvement roadmap may deliver visible results already in 2013, thinks Director of the Energy Development Fund Sergey Pikin.
He expressed this opinion while giving his presentation at the International Symposium for Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving held in Kazan, Russia.
According to Pikin, The World Bank's Doing Business rating ranked Russia 112th in Ease of Doing Business and 184th in Getting Electricity, right between Madagascar and Bangladesh (183rd and 185th respectively).
"The World Bank concludes that getting connected to the grid in Russia is difficult because it requires passing 10 procedures, a lengthy process taking 281 days, and costs a lot - 1574% of income per capita (around 5.68 million rubles). The study, based on a survey of entrepreneurs and assuming a connected load of a standard warehouse of 140 kVA, arrived at the conclusions that are far from promising," said Sergey Pikin.
This project to be developed until 2018 is designed to simplify the conditions for connection of small and medium businesses to the energy infrastructure in all regions of Russia. The main goal is to strip the grid connection process down to 5 procedures, reduce the time down to 40 days, cut the cost to 25% of income per capita. Its implementation will enable improving the investment climate in Russia, and as a consequence boosting the capital inflows and raising living standards.
"This task is quite demanding - in 5 years to normalize the work of the power grid complex and bring all of the procedures that a business is currently required to pass to world standards - but it is doable. It is necessary first to ensure the proactive development of the network infrastructure taking into account the interests of both consumers and grid companies," said Mr.Pikin.
According to him, in order to achieve this goal it is very important to begin with solving the land issues - to bring the time for land allocation for the construction of transmission facilities down to 1 month and reduce the time for obtaining building and excavation permits to 7 days.
"In addition, while solving the land issue, it is important also to keep in mind the lost income of energy companies caused by preferential tariffs for grid connection and make the consumers responsible for the demanded connected capacity: 'demand, receive, consume,'" - he said.
Director of the Fund emphasized that the question of principle for the project is to align the regional development programs.
"The regional authorities must synchronize their territorial development plans, territorial energy development programs, as well as the approved investment programs of grid companies. They will have a lot of work ahead, but its completion will significantly ease the current situation in grid connection," he said, noting that the issues and problems can not be solved without close cooperation with the state authorities, whose position could make or break the project.
"In this vein, key performance indicators should be developed, and approved by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, to evaluate the performance of senior officials of the RF subjects in terms of creating a favorable business environment," added Mr.Pikin.
He also mentioned that the Federal Tariff Service will be made responsible for the average time for connection of consumers (up to 150 kW) from the date of receipt of the application for grid connection to the date of issue of the grid connection statement, that is, the speed of connection of businesses to the electricity. The Ministry of Energy would be responsible for the level of utilization of new and reconstructed energy infrastructure (the indicator reflects how an investment program meets the needs of the business).
For better fulfillment of the Roadmaps three layers of the monitoring system will be put in place. The first envisages the adoption of a regulation on monitoring (from the publication of the order to introduction of the bill), the second the monitoring at the level of working groups developing the roadmaps, and the third the monitoring by focus groups involving the Clubs of regional leaders.
"I believe that such mechanisms for monitoring and accountability of the federal and regional authorities will help to achieve the stated goals of the Roadmap within the required time. The result should become visible in a year," said Mr.Pikin.
In 2012 in Russia (with the support of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives), a working group was established to develop the Roadmap for Infrastructure Accessibility Improvement. This work began as part of the National Entrepreneurial Initiatives designed to improve the institutional environment for doing business in our country. The working group included representatives from the government, business, public organizations and experts. Ultimately, the roadmap was approved by the RF Government Decree No. 1144-r dated 30 June 2012.
In early September 2012, the Government of the Russian Federation issued the order dated 06.09.2012 No.1613-r “On the implementation of action plans on ... Infrastructure Accessibility Improvement”. According to the order, the Ministry of Economic Development is to receive monthly and quarterly reports from the relevant federal executive bodies on the implementation of the Roadmap, and send them to the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), which is one of the project originators. The ASI is to review the information within a month and send the results to the Ministry, which in its turn will make a final report for the RF Government.
For better fulfillment of the Roadmaps three layers of the monitoring system will be put in place. The first envisages the adoption of a regulation on monitoring (from the publication of the order to introduction of the bill), the second the monitoring at the level of working groups developing the roadmaps, and the third the monitoring by focus groups involving the Clubs of regional leaders.
