Russia postpones launch of power plants in Crimea by half a year
Russian Deputy Energy Minister Andrey Cherezov announced on May 3 that the preliminary start of operations for the first group of Thermal Power Plants (TPP) under construction in Simferopol and Sevastopol is scheduled for October. The second block is scheduled to launch operations in November.
"These are the preliminary dates for the stations, and those of us in the government will, first and foremost, make adjustments; it [the launch] will be October-November. The first blocks will be put into operation sometime in October, and the second [will be commissioned] in November. It is possible that it will all go faster," Interfax quotes Cherezov as saying.
The Russian news agencies report that Cherezov claimed that the stations will not be cleared until the gas networks are properly commissioned.
"Therefore, the original paperwork problem remains; we have the same gas, and we are running trials. But Aksyonov [the Russian head of the Crimea] has undertaken to eliminate these lags within a certain period of time," said Cherezov.
At the end of April, the Russian Ministry of Energy sent a proposal to the Russian government to postpone the commissioning of the Sevastopol and Simferopol TPPs.
Russia's Tekhnopromexport is building two thermal power plants in Simferopol and Sevastopol, which will have a total capacity of 940 MW. The first blocks of the two stations were put into operation in the first half of 2018.
A scandal broke out in June 2017 regarding the delivery of turbines made by the German company Siemens to Crimea for the TPPs. Turbines are a necessary requirement for the construction of a TPP. Siemens is disputing the transportation of turbines to the Crimea in court, as the delivery was prohibited under EU sanctions.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in July 2017 that the thermal power plants in the Crimea will be built even if Siemens withdraws the turbines that were delivered to the peninsula.
A power outage has continued to cripple the Crimea, despite the launch of a third power line the Russian energy bridge in spring 2016. Crimea has ceased to receive electricity from the mainland of Ukraine since December 2015 due to the damage to the electric mount in Kherson Oblast. At present, Crimea is supplied only by its own power generation, generator sets from Russia, and the energy bridge from the Kuban.