Thanks to the existing program for the development of renewable energy sources (RES), the development of modern renewable energy has become possible. A competitive selection is the most prominent enabling mechanism for RES in the wholesale market, on account of which investors make a power supply contract (LTCA) with the state. The investment demand for wind farm construction projects is high. At the moment, two basic RES markets have been formed – a new capacity market (750 billion rubles size) and the high-tech engineering market with an investment potential of up to 250 billion rubles. The industry’s aggregate contribution to the country’s GDP is rated from 0.1 to 0.5% per year. In general, experts agree that the national program for the development of renewable energy has been competently established. It is thanks to the program in the Russian power engineering industry, composite industry, shipbuilding and metal processing that a new industry is being created – the production of components for wind turbines.
Out of the certain legally binding level of localisation of 65%, which would have been being observed since 2019, the share of component production is 44%. Each component has its own “weight” in this gradation and market value, accordingly. The customer of the components is the wind generators manufacturer, or the vendor, who is legally required to “localize” the production of wind generators sold in Russia to investors. Therefore vendors such as Vestas, Siemens-Gamesa, Lagerwey (Novavind-Rosatom) and Fuhrländer Windtechnology LLC order the production of their components for wind turbines from Russian enterprises. The cost of each component out of proportion of the value of a wind generator is shown in the diagram, and the amount of each component required by the market accounts for from several thousand to hundreds of thousands pieces, given that the Russian wind energy market is deemed the most promising in the world according to experts. Map of the projects has almost four dozen wind farms with a total capacity of up to 3,350 MW for the next few years, and the project formulation continues on the expectation of continued support for the industry.
Back in 2013, the trial production of the hub for the wind generator at the Petrozavodskmash Foundry of the State Corporation Rosatom was the first sign in this process. And the production of blades for Vestas wind turbines, that are being built in Ulyanovsk, was the first major project in this area (The agreement between Silovye Mashiny and Rosnano regarding the creation of the tower production in Taganrog and the recent agreement on the establishment of the Rosnano enterprise and the Spanish Windar on the creation of the wind turbine tower production). In the RAWI’s “register of localizers”, several enterprises are already presented, but their numbers are not enough to precisely bring all the components to market.
As the phrase goes, the ice has been broken, but the process if affected by some conservatism of the industrial enterprises. The development of new products takes time, and it was revealed by the more detailed consideration of the problem that the overwhelming majority of the enterprises are immersed in solving day-to-day issues of patching holes or wait for saving grace in the form of government orders. And beginning in 2019, a supply of the highly localized wind turbines would be necessary. And for a comprehensive solution of the problem, it is necessary to collect both vendors and candidate component manufacturers in the same place, which the majority of shipbuilding, power engineering, composite and radio engineering industries can become. To this end, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation has announced a so-called “Supplier’s Day“, where all the vendors present in the Russian market and representatives of Russian industrial enterprises would gather in Sochi on April 10-11. This is a rare opportunity to meet with decision-makers and agree on cooperation and find out one’s possibilities.