26-07-01 The prime ministers of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan have signed an agreement that provides for the pooling of the efforts of regional power companies that have accorded a hostile reception to a number of initiatives from the Unified Energy Systems of Russia Russian joint-stock company [RAO UES]. The concerted operation of the power companies of two republics will enable them to achieve greater independence of UES.
The UES has been engaged for six months now in a trench warfare against three regional power companies that are not part of the holding company. Bashenergo, Irkutskenergo and the Tatenergo Power Production Association [PPA] are refusing to remit a user fee to UES on the grounds that they are deficit-free and support a high-voltage line independently.
In addition, the contracts that regulate these companies' relations with UES make no provision for a user fee. The battle has been fought with variable success thus far: The Russian Federation Prosecutor-General's Office taking the part of UES while the Federal Energy Commission has introduced lenient tariffs for the independent operators.

The agreement on cooperation in the field of electric power engineering signed by the premiers of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan provides for the interaction of Tatenergo and Bashenergo in developing a unified tariff policy. It is planned to form a coordination commission (to be directed by Fanis Nafikov, deputy CEO of the Tatenergo PPA), which will consider various scenarios of the autonomous existence of the united power complexes of the two republics.
Specialists maintain that the power engineers of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan are capable of catering for the electricity requirements of industry and households in both republics and, what is more, at low prices, which will make it possible to have done with dependence on UES. Midkhat Shakirov, first deputy prime minister of Bashkortostan, explained that it is not a question of the enclosure of a small power ring: both power grids will remain within the framework of the Russia's unified power grid.
"But we have many opportunities for interaction, beginning with the regulation of capacity connected with the time-zone gap and we could make successful use of this," the official emphasized. A political decision on the joint operation of Bashenergo and Tatenergo could be made in August at the meeting of Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaymiyev and his Bashkir counterpart, Murtaza Rakhimov.

But for the engineering support of the autonomous character of the power companies the constituent parts of the Russian Federation need to make a difficult decision on a change in the operation of the Nizhnekamsk Hydroelectric Station. This power plant, the biggest in the Volga region, is currently operating at only 35 % of planned capacity. If the level of the reservoir is raised 6 metres, the plant's productivity will grow almost 200 %, from 420 to 1,160 MW-hours a year. But approximately 86,000 hectares of land would have to be flooded and not just in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan but in neighbouring Udmurtia and Perm Region too.
Judging by the agreement that has been signed, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan are prepared, for the sake of energy independence, to flood part of their territory. But the two other constituent parts of the Russian Federation, for which implementation of this project would mean merely the loss of plough land and an absence of any energy benefits whatsoever, will inevitably be opposed. And this means that the project of the Tatar and Bashkir power engineers will "drown" at the federal level.