Experts warned of risks for the industry due to rising electricity prices

Rising electricity costs may increase the costs of Russian industrial enterprises and weaken their competitiveness in global markets. Energy-intensive industries are particularly vulnerable, for which electricity costs account for a significant part of the cost of production. These problems and possible solutions were discussed by the participants of the session "Industrial Competitiveness in the New Investment Cycle: Who pays for Growth" at the Russian Energy Week (REN-2026).

According to the forecast of the NP Market Council association, by 2042 the cost of electricity will increase by an average of 9.3% annually, which is about twice the expected rate of inflation. At the same time, infrastructure payments for electricity and networks already account for about 10% of the material costs of the Russian industry, and by 2030 their share may grow to 12%.

Maxim Balashov, Director of Work with Natural Monopolies at Rusal, said that in five years the share of electricity in the cost of production of the company has increased from 25% to 32%, and by 2035 it may reach 40%. Meanwhile, the increase in electricity costs for aluminum production in China and the Middle East for the period up to 2035 is expected to be significantly lower than in Russia — 3.2% and 1.4% versus 4.9% on average for the year, respectively. According to the company's estimates, the cost of electricity for Rusal will increase by 79% by this date, while for competitors in China it will increase by 33%.

The increase in energy consumption cannot be considered only as an internal issue of tariff regulation, the session participants noted. This is especially true for export-oriented industries, including metallurgy, as it affects the competitiveness of products on the global market. And the loss of competitiveness in export markets creates prerequisites for transferring rising costs to the price of products in the domestic market.

Against this background, industry representatives proposed to change the procedure for financing the construction of energy infrastructure. According to Balashov, the costs of generation and networks needed to connect new consumers should not be automatically distributed among already operating enterprises.

"Ideally, a new consumer should come with a new generation," said a Rusal representative.

A similar approach was proposed by Mikhail Kaminsky, Deputy Minister of Economic Development. In his opinion, consumers should pay for the construction of the power plants they need on a "take it or pay it" basis or build them themselves. At the same time, the investor may be given the opportunity to sell surplus electricity on the wholesale market.

According to the participants of the discussion, more careful planning of the construction of new energy facilities and more accurate forecasting of demand will also help to contain costs. Kaminsky proposed updating the consumption forecast in the general layout of electric power facilities in order to avoid the construction of excess capacity.

According to preliminary estimates, electricity consumption in Russia may decrease by 0.5% in 2026. At the same time, the General layout of electric power facilities provides for the construction of about 80 GW of new generating capacities and 20 thousand km of electric grids.

Dmitry Golovko, NLMK Group's Director of Energy Development, suggested making more active use of existing power plant reserves, eliminating network restrictions and improving pricing mechanisms.

In addition, the Ministry of Economic Development is developing a regulatory act on the redistribution of unclaimed network capacity between consumers. According to Kaminsky, the concept of the mechanism has already been supported by the government. It is assumed that this will make more efficient use of the existing infrastructure and reduce the need for the construction of new network facilities.

Another measure mentioned by the participants of the discussion was the reduction of administrative costs during the construction of power plants. Pavel Snikkars, CEO of T Plus, proposed to abandon the re-approval of standard design solutions that have already passed state expertise, as well as to conduct expertise and coordination with the system operator and network organizations in parallel. In his opinion, this will reduce the construction time and costs, which are subsequently taken into account in the cost of electricity.