The Unified Energy System of Russia, which manages seven power systems in Russia (all Russia excepted northern islands and isolated systems in north-eastern Siberia) has issued its 2018 annual report. Domestic installed capacity increased by 1.4% to 243 GW at the end of December 2018 and remains dominated by thermal power plants (68%), while hydropower plants accounted for 20% and nuclear power plants for 12%. Renewable capacities accounted for less than 1% (0.3% for solar and 0.1% for wind).
Power generation increased by 1.6% to 1,071 TWh, including +1.6% for thermal power plants (64% of the power mix), +2.7% for hydropower plants (17% of power generation) and +0.7% for nuclear plants (19% of power generation). Renewable power generation rose significantly (+66% for wind and +35% for solar) but remained marginal in the power mix (around 0.1%). Power consumption rose by 1.5%.
In 2018, Russia imported 4 TWh, of which 3.7 TWh from Kazakhstan, 178 GWh from Estonia and 78 GWh from the Ukraine. It exported 19.5 TWh, including 7.9 TWh to Finland, 3.1 TWh to China, 2.9 TWh to Lithuania, 2.9 TWh to Ukraine, 1.2 TWh to Latvia, 569 GWh to Belarus and 388 GWh to Mongolia.
More specifically, state-run power company RusHydro also published its yearly results, reporting an all-time high gross power generation record of 144 TWh (+2.8%): hydropower and pumped storage plants power generation rose by 2.6% to 98.4 TWh due to highers total water inflows in the hydropower plants of Siberia and in the Volga-Kama cascade. Meanwhile, its thermal power generation rose by 3.9% to 31.7 TWh. RusHydro's total installed electric capacity stood at 39,363 MW, of which 326 MW were commissioned in 2018. This figure entails in particular 27,695 MW of hydropower capacity, 8,591 MW of thermal capacity and 79 MW of geothermal capacity.