The Russian Ministry of Energy has submitted to the central government a draft order intended to amend Russia’s “General Scheme for the Location of Electric Power Facilities until 2035”, which includes plans for the commissioning of 3.8 GW of new hydropower plants and 2.9 GW of new pumped-storage hydropower plants. The issues pertaining to hydropower development will be worked on for the release of a new “General Scheme until 2042”, which will be developed in 2023-2024 and will take into account the new requirements.
In addition, the Russian government has launched a working group on the development of hydro and pumped storage in the country. As a result of the study led by the working group, 13 projects for the construction of new hydropower plants, which could reach total installed capacity of 6.5 GW, and 7 projects representing 7 GW of pumped storage power plants, were considered. Beside the construction of new hydropower plants, Russia will also seek to modernise the units of existing hydropower plants.
At the end of 2021, hydro represented around 18% of Russia’s installed capacity with over 50 GW and nearly 19% of the country’s power generation with 1,157 TWh.