Following the results of the autumn and winter period the number of technological failures in Belgorodenergo has been reduced by one third

IDGC of Centre — Belgorodenrego division summed up the autumn-winter period of 2012/13. No serious failures in the transmission of electricity, mass blackouts, accidents and fires were recorded. The number of outages compared to last year decreased by 33%. The average time of a power interruption for consumers decreased from 1.3 hour to 1.2 hour, and the average time of elimination of technological failures, respectively, from 1.8 to 1.5 hour.

According to Deputy General Director of IDGC of Centre — Belgorodenrego division director Roman Tkachenko, it became possible due to the implementation of a package of measures to prepare the electric grid complex for winter and one hundred percent implementation of its repair and investment programs. «Despite the long winter, and the record of historical high energy consumption, we operated through the autumn and winter period successfully and provided the necessary reliability of the grid complex of the region,» he stressed.

The stable operation of Belgorodenrego was also recognized at the federal level. Deputy Chairman of the Commission on the state regulation of prices and tariffs in the Belgorod region, Sergey Mozgovoy handed over to Belgorod power engineers thanks of the Minister of Energy and head of the Duma Committee on Energy for a good job during the autumn and winter period, and noted that the dynamics of growth of energy consumption of the Belgorod region is now in the fourth place in the country.

In the run-up to the maximum load period the power engineers spent more than 216 million rubles to repair power grids. The branch renovated 1628 km of power lines, 90 high voltage and 685 transformer substations, cleared and expanded 1067 hectares of ROWs along power lines. In order to reduce the timing of work the repair was performed comprehensively, by involving several crews. In the formation of the maintenance programs the branch was taking into account not only the normative lifecycle of power facilities, but also the results of diagnostics of more than one million pieces of equipment stored in a single electronic database.

The volume of capital investments in the development of power grid facilities in 2012 exceeded 5 billion rubles. Fixed assets were spent on the reconstruction of feeding centres, construction of electric networks in residential areas for individual housing construction, replacement of dilapidated networks in settlements and performance on contracts for grid connection of consumers.

In total, thousands of 0.4-110 kV lines were commissioned, comprehensive reconstruction of four 110 kV substations was performed: «Maximovka», «Streletskaya», «Mine», and «Chernyanka» and nine 35 kV substations — the key facilities that significantly affect the operation through winter peak loads.

The improvement of the reliability and quality of electricity supply was significantly contributed by the implementation of monitoring environmental parameters in the Belgorod region’s area. On the eve of 2012-2013 autumn and winter period the power engineers installed 16 automatic weather stations in the region, allowing with special sensors to obtain real-time data on weather conditions. The first results of the practical application of the weather stations, received past winter, suggest increasing the response of the energy company to the worsening weather conditions.

This year IDGC of Centre paid special attention to elimination of emergencies and reduction of restoration timeframe. Belgorodenergo added its fleet of off-highway special vehicles, which are equipped with a GLONASS/GPS monitoring system «AutoTracker». It made possible to considerably increase the mobility of crews performing emergency repair work. In the state of around the clock readiness there are eight crews of increased mobility of 40 people. The supply of electricity to socially significant facilities during a power failure is provided by 85 redundant power sources that are located in Distribution Zones.

As Roman Tkachenko underlined, at the end of the autumn-winter period the branch immediately began to prepare for the next one. Currently Belgorodenergo has completed certification of crews’ readiness for safe performance of large-scale maintenance work. In the summer months, the power engineers are to perform not only scheduled maintenance of power equipment, but also to implement a number of major investment projects that will improve the reliability of the electric grid complex.

Under the reliability program 7 high-voltage substations will have comprehensive upgrade — the 110 kV Substation «Eastern», located two kilometers from the settlement of Razumnoye, «Irrigation» in Valuisky district, «Upper Pokrovka» in Krasnogvardeysky district, «Serebryanka» in Novooskolsky district and the 35 kV Substation — «Reservoir» and «Starikovo» in Shebekinsky district, and «Velikomikhailovka» in Novooskolsky district. The investment program includes the construction and reconstruction — 1435 km of 0.4-110 kV grids, including the 35 kV Conductor «Shebekino — Maslova Pristan» with transfer to cable networks. Comprehensive reconstruction of networks will be performed in 30 settlements. About 260 km of power lines are to be constructed under the private housing construction program for more than 4 thousand individual building plots.

Implementation of the entire planned scope will provide reliable and quality power supply to consumers in the 2013-2014 autumn and winter period.