Projects of RT-Invest incineration plants is under the threat of disruption

Victoria Pavlova

We are talking about the very waste incineration TPPs of the company "RT Invest" by Andrey Shipelov, which are opposed by both local residents and environmentalists.

Three years after the start of work, it turned out that high-quality waste (with a minimum amount of organic matter suitable for incineration) may not be enough. According to the company's calculations, only 80% of electricity will be generated by waste incineration. The remaining 20% will fall on the combustion of conventional gas, as in traditional thermal power plants. And in order to obtain the status of a station for RES (renewable energy sources), it is necessary to obtain at least 95% of the energy from garbage.

The problem is that incineration plants, besides being harmful to the environment, are also very expensive. The planned costs for the construction of incineration TPPs are 378.7 thousand rubles per 1 kW of generated energy. But the status of RES, obtained in a very dubious way, bypassing many procedures, allowed RT-Invest to count on increased payments from the wholesale market (the mechanism is identical to capacity supply contracts - DBM TBO abbreviation in Russian language) for 15 years, which would give a yield of 12%. Now everything is going to the fact that incineration TPP will lose the premium from the wholesale market and will be forced to sell electricity at regular rates. The monthly payment of all 4 stations for capacity supply contracts DBM TBO was supposed to be about 2.2 billion rubles. But for non-fulfillment of the conditions, a fine is also imposed, which, according to analysts at VTB Capital, may amount to 557 million rubles.

When the competition for the construction of 5 incineration TPPs was played in 2017, the management of RT-Invest stated that no more than 1% of generation would fall on gas. After a 20-fold increase in the share of traditional energy sources in the generation of incineration TPP (did Andrey Shipelov not understand how much waste would be needed at the project stage?), Even dragging through the State Duma a law that equates waste incineration with recycling will not help. For this, a lot of efforts were made in due time: the initiative was disguised in 2019, having introduced it as part of amendments to the law on recycling fees, and Vladimir Burmatov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, completely denied the presence of such a project in parliament.

The company, of course, has already sent a request to the Ministry of Energy demanding to reduce the required minimum generation from renewable energy sources to 80% (apparently, in the expectation that there is nowhere to retreat). But the chances of getting such permission are minimal, because common sense begins to outweigh. First, Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko spoke out against environmental pollution at the expense of the population and energy consumers, then the Ministry of Finance refused to finance the further development and construction of another 25 incineration TPPs until the first five reach their design capacity and show financial results. Now it is up to Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov.

For Andrey Shipelov, the situation is complicated by the fact that this is not exclusively his project. RT-Invest is backed by Rostec Sergey Chemezov, who owns a 25.01% stake in the company. Previously, this patronage helped promote incinerators under the incineration TPP, but this may now be changing. If the project fails, investments of 200 billion rubles will be lost. And only 20% of them are funds from RT-Invest itself. A company with debts will remain (the main creditors are Gazprombank and VEB.RF), and the chair may stagger under Shipelov. Chemezov has enough resources for personnel changes.