| Abstract |
Over the next decade there will not appear any new energy sources in the world, which could satisfy the world consumers, and the power supply will be based on well known and most efficient heat and energy resources. In 20-30 years the world reserves of coal, oil and gas will significantly run out, consequently prices for electricity will start growing. Currently the Russian heat-power engineering is in the initial stage of big transformation, caused by the following facts: 1. Radical political and economical changes currently taking place in Russia (open and free market of electricity and heat, increase of prices for fuel and services, restructuring of power supply systems in the utilities sector, establishment of charges on greenhouse gas emission); 2. Most equipment at thermal power plants and combined heat power plants (over 70%) is out of date both physically and technologically, and therefore shall be replaced; 3. If Russia enters the World Trade Organization, prices for electricity and heat will increase in most regions of Russia; 4. It will be more profitable for Russia to sell gas, oil and their products, than to burn them at power plants, boiler houses, in the utilities sector and industry, should new energy efficient technologies not be implemented urgently; 5. Earth heat reserves in Russia are ten times higher than fossil fuel reserves. Geothermal resources are well investigated and widely available. For the next 30-50 years among main trends of efficient power supply in Russia should be the following: 1. Thermal power plants and combined cycle heat power plants for heat and power generation (CCPP, including steam installations working not on water steam), characterized by efficiency factor of the cycle at over 60%, which is 45-75% higher than the ones peculiar to existing thermal power plants with a steam cycle; 2. Heat engineering and heat supply to the utilities sector, industry and a number of enterprises in agriculture should base on geothermal resource utilization and wide application of heat pumps; 3. Priority district heating systems for cities and settlements should be presented by local geothermal systems, which will reduce the cost of 1 GKal in 2-3 times 4. In a number of cases Binary Power Plants (BPP) will allow establishing systems for full heat and power supply based on the earth heat utilization. Establishment of charges on greenhouse gas emission (—Œ2, etc) and carbon credit market will place the geothermal heat and power engineering on the first place in Russia when compared to boiler houses working on fossil fuel, thermal power plants and combined cycle heat power plants, which are currently in service. Today in Russia almost 20 new geothermal projects are being developed in Moscow, on Kamchatka, in Kaliningrad region, Omsk region, Krasnodar Krai, Dagestan and other regions. |