Monday, December 15, 2014

Meanwhile in Russia

Last week RAO Energy Systems of East (energy provider for the Eastern part of Russia with close to 53% of state ownership) announced they had installed an experimental sunpower plant in the settlement of Dzhagarlakh in Eveno-Bytantaysky National Ulus (district) of Sakha (Yakutia) Republic within the Russian Federation.

Thanks to Yakutia-24 for the image.
The sunpower plant has capacity of 15 kWts and consists of three types of solar panels: 20 of polycrystalline silicon, 20 of monocrystalline silicon, and 33 of amorphous silicon. This is the 8th plant of renewable energy the company runs; however, the rest are using monocrystalline silicon panels only. Here, within a year the engineers plan to estimate quality, advantages and disadvatages of each type in the harsh local environment, especially in winter (which, by the way, takes a good half of year there, if not longer). Yes, Russia is sometimess tooooooo large (great, if I may) to comprehend it, yet our Mother Russia is just like that.

The sunpower plant works in tandem with an existing diesel power plant producing 460 kWts of electricity. In comparison with that 15 kWts is not that much, yet it will allow to save about 10 tons of diesel fuel yearly, which is critically important for the settlement (and quite good for nature — hi there, dear Greenpeace): the only way to get to the place on the ground is winter roads, and diesel fuel is delivered there from a transit point, where it is collected during a pretty short summer navigation period. You see, it's bloody expensive to get it there. Or, as we Russians say, it's expensive as a civil war (guess, why).

I was glad to know that the company is implementing a long-term program of renewable energy production in Russia. They are going to build up about 170 renewable energy power plants, which will total at 120 MWts.

I wish them great success.

P.S.: Sanctions, you say? We will survive. Will you?

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