Hotline of power engineering specialists:
The quantity of dangerous weather phenomena in the recently ended autumn and winter season increased by 38%. CEO of the Rosseti company Pavel Livinsky told a correspondent of TASS about fight against natural cataclysms, including the "snowfall of a century", reliable power supply and digitalization of production processes.
- At the end of April, a severe storm hit the central part of Russia. What damage did it inflict on the equipment of Rosseti, how was the work to restore it, and are you satisfied with the efficiency of the company's specialists?
- Work of any professional begins with high-quality preparation. Whatever talented was the person if he did not devote a lot of time to trainings and practicing skills, at the right time even the most gifted will not be able to cope with a critical situation.
For specialists of the Rosseti group it is obvious that during the autumn and winter period they cannot avoid difficulties caused by weather, therefore we constantly prepare for them in several directions at once.
Firstly, the considerable attention is paid to practical trainings, joint with the regional authorities, with involvement of colleagues from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, municipal services and other territorial grid organizations. By preparation for the past autumn-winter period in 2017 the Rosseti group practically carried out twice more such trainings and exercises, including autumn unplanned, in comparison with the preparation in 2016.
Secondly, it is permanent modernization of the power grid complex with use of the most modern technologies and the equipment having the increased resistance to negative weather phenomena.
As a result, when the strongest storm hit eight regions of Central Federal District for all history of observations, according to meteorologists, it did not make serious negative impact on work of grid power facilities of the Rosseti group - no more than 1% of our consumers faced technology violations. At the same time, thanks to readiness of workers and the equipment, lighting was restored for the shortest possible time to those who were hit by the bad weather.
For the fastest elimination of all effects of the storm - and they were considerable, only in New Moscow and the Moscow region wind rushes, having reached 30 m/s, uncharacteristic for these places, damaged more than 160 poles of power lines and tumbled down over 1,400 trees onto wires - we involved all available forces and means, including from the neighbouring regions, not hit by the cyclone.
In total more than 2,300 people and 665 pieces of equipment were involved in elimination of effects of the storm. Recovery of power supply of consumers, including socially important facilities, was performed quickly, with use of mobile power plants with a total power of 43 MW.
It is important to emphasize that even in the peak of the natural disaster in the capital in the service area of Rosseti no bulb blinked, and the average time of elimination of technical violations in the Moscow region did not exceed two hours. It was required less than a day in other territories for complete recovery of power supply of consumers. It took more time only in the Tver region because a large number of power transmission line passes through woody areas and the marshland.
Summing up the results of those events, I note that our specialists worked professionally, harmoniously and quickly, having validated the chosen approaches to preparation and work in difficult weather conditions.
At the same time engineers of Rosseti carry out the deep analysis of the received results, develop additional measures of counteraction to different, including abnormal, weather factors. Our task is reliable power supply of consumers in any conditions.
- Recently the autumn and winter season came to the end. What was it for enterprises of the Rosseti group, how did it differ from previous years?
- In a number of regions we note not just increase in the dangerous weather phenomena, but emergence of natural events, absolutely uncharacteristic for these territories.
In addition to the already mentioned storm in the CFD I can give an example of the Volga Federal District where in December 2017 abnormal icing on wires and cables of overhead lines of all voltage levels was noted.
Our personnel had to monitor round the clock the situation and to start melting or mechanical breaking of dangerous icy and frosty deposits.
The total quantity of cases of mechanical breaking grew in relation to last year by 25% - from 396 to 522 cases.
I cannot but remember what in the press received the name "snowfall of a century" when at the beginning of February of the current year in Moscow, the Moscow and Kaluga regions it was snowing with rain for 48 hours - the quantity of rainfall which dropped out during this time exceeded the monthly mean - and squally wind up to 25 m/s was observed.
And Rosseti passed this test with honour. In the Moscow region by 20%, and in the Kaluga region practically the number of technology violations on power facilities in comparison with the icy rain of 2016 decreased by 85%, and the average time of restoration of power supply this year was 2 hours 40 minutes against 9 hours 20 minutes in Moscow and the Moscow region and 11 hours in the Kaluga region, respectively.
In general, in the ended autumn and winter period the quantity of the dangerous weather phenomena increased by 38% in comparison with the previous one, but I not for nothing at the very beginning of the conversation mentioned special attention which Rosseti pays to preparation for the different adverse phenomena and emergency situations because, despite all difficulties which we had to face this winter we managed to improve production indicators: last autumn and winter period in comparison with previous the indicator SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index) was lowered by 19%, and SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) - by 34%.
- When does preparation for a new season begin and what is going to be made for it?
- Preparation for the autumn and winter period never stops. During the current autumn and winter period there is work "on paper" when we analyze results of the past winter conducted and we introduce the corresponding amendments in preparation to the following one, and in the first day upon the end of a season of peak loads practical implementation of the drawn-up plans begins.
This year the company is going to implement new valuation methods of availability of power facilities based on a risk - oriented model. Such approach will allow to increase observability of power grids for quick elimination of failures.
Also grid control centres will have new functions regarding operational management of production services.
The volume of the funds allocated for upgrading of grid infrastructure within the program of maintenance and repair will be increased by 5%, to 64 billion rubles. This money will go including for installation of modern equipment, environment-proof about which I spoke earlier.
- In the World Bank Doing Business rating Russia is among the best countries with the indicator "Reliability of power supply". What work was carried out for this purpose by Rosseti?
- First of all, it should be noted that Rosseti together with the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation became ideologists of creation of a system of accounting and measure calculation of reliability corresponding to the international techniques. We created and constantly improve an automated system which quickly reports about outages in the power grid complex. It is one of key conditions of assignment of the World Bank Doing Business rating with the indicator "Reliability of power supply".
Our work on creation of reliable schemes of power supply which are influenced, first of all, by the quantity of reserve systems in big cities has become not less important. In two largest business centres of our country - Moscow and St. Petersburg - reliability indicators are three times higher than the reference values used in the estimate technique of the World Bank today.
We are not satisfied with what has already been achieved and we try to increase even more safety of power supply to consumers for what the whole set of technical actions is implemented.
- Did digitalization of production processes concern the Rosseti enterprise? What work in this area was and will be carried out?
- Digitalization of the power grid complex will allow to reach qualitatively a new level in the field of reliability, availability, efficiency and customer focus without additional load of consumers.
When carrying out modernization of grid infrastructure Rosseti everywhere applies advanced technologies. Substations using local digital solutions have already been implemented and are successfully operated. For example, they are implemented at facilities of the Moscow power ring. In December 2017, in Krasnoyarsk the first digital substation was put into operation. In the Kaliningrad region the pilot project "Digital Distribution Zone" is implemented.
Smart grids have systems of self-diagnostics and self-recovery, demand minimum intervention of people and allow to increase many times reliability of power supply for the consumer.
A real example is transition to digital technologies in Mamonovsky and Bagrationovsky districts of the Kaliningrad region where we just implemented a pilot project.
Grids in these districts were not observable, with a significant amount of illegal connections that led to daily outages. And now locals forgot about it because we see all the grid. Already at the first stage we reduced losses from 23% to 13%, and upon completion of implementation of all planned measures we will come to 6-7%. We raised indicators of SAIDI and SAIFI by 60%, almost lowered operating costs by 20%. All achieved results demonstrate that this experience needs to be replicated also in other territories.
Within digitalization of production processes Rosseti studies one more direction - "Digital electrician". It is a complex information system (sensors, tablets, helmets of augmented reality and others) integrated into the employee's overalls. With its help it is possible to watch remotely actions of the specialist, to give him support at task performance, to timely introduce necessary changes.
Such approach will allow to increase, first of all, safety of work, to exclude mistakes and to provide control and coordination of actions of operation and repair personnel from the control room, and also to increase labour productivity and to reduce time of performance of work.
The general result of transition to "digits" - additional decrease in terms of grid connection, automation of relations with consumers and implementation of new services of "the Internet of things" realized at our facilities, a 30 percent decrease in operating, capital expenditure and losses.
The result of it is cost reduction of consumers on electric power, increase in dividend base, and also increase in investment appeal of enterprises of the power grid complex and growth of their capitalization.
- Payment discipline of consumers is always a problematic issue of resource supplying organizations. How is the situation with you?
- Ensuring reliable and regular power supply of consumers and development of infrastructure of regions directly depends on the payment discipline of consumers. We systemically approach the solution of the matter therefore the payment level for services annually raises and, for example, in 2017 the historical maximum - 99,94% was reached.
Obvious, it was due to improvement of the federal legislation at the initiative of Rosseti: increase in the rate of a penalty fee for delay of payments, introduction of a partial advance payment for services, and also deprivation of companies - non-payers of the status of a supplier of last resort.
Today we can also state stabilization of the size of accounts receivable: the last three years it remains approximately at one level and as of January 1, 2018 is 139 billion rubles. Now we work to decrease this figure.
- 262 billion rubles were used to perform the investment program of the company last year. What did you manage to do? Which energy facilities are planned to be commissioned in the near future and what are the funds for this?
- In 2017 we invested 262 billion rubles in modernization of the power grid complex. 12,3 GVA transformer capacities and nearly 25 000 km of power lines were commissioned as a result, the program of preparation for holding the FIFA World Cup - 2018 is complete, a number of large projects providing connection to electric grids of infrastructure companies, priority facilities for the independent operation of the energy systems of the Kaliningrad region and the integrated power system of the North-West region of Russia in the case of technological separation of the power systems of the Baltic States.
From 2018 to 2020 the Rosseti group will invest about 750 billion rubles in development of power grid infrastructure of the Taman Peninsula, the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian railroad, power supply of facilities of the Winter Universiade in Krasnoyarsk.
It is also important to note that we reviewed priorities of our investment program. We will allocate funds for digitalization and creation in Russia of smart grids. Our task is to pass to a digital format of work.
- Ahead there is a big sports festival - the FIFA World Cup. Are you ready to its holding?
- Rosseti beforehand prepared the power grid infrastructure for ensuring reliable power supply of facilities of the championship and settlements in which participants of the tournament and fans will live.
I will remind, in November 2017, President Vladimir Putin in a video conference gave the instruction to commission in Moscow, Kaliningrad and Samara three modern substations with elements of digital technologies providing power supply of stadiums of the FIFA World Cup the operation start of which marked the end of preparation of the Rosseti group regarding construction, reconstruction and commissioning of necessary capacities.
For the period of holding the soccer tournament football we will provide the strengthened mode of operation of the power grid complex. In total it is going to involve about 1,000 people from among operation personnel, about 2,000 people of repair and support personnel, more than 700 specialized vehicles, about 100 reserve sources of power supply.
And, of course, all our 228 thousand employees are ready to support the Russian national team in the World Cup which for the first time takes place in our country.
