#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The professional holiday of the energy industry workers was approved in 1966 and is still celebrated today. On this day, power engineers are also congratulated in the subdivisions of the Nornickel Polar Division.
Norilsk power engineers are proud of their profession. The energy system necessary for the city and the company functioning was created in the most difficult climatic and geographical conditions and is considered one of the most unique in the country. It has an isolated character, is not connected with the external energy system of the Russian Federation and is the largest among its kind in terms of production of electrical and thermal energy. The Ust-Hantai hydroelectric power station gave its first industrial current half a century ago, and the Norilsk-Snezhnogorsk power transmission line became a testing ground in the Arctic.
It is known that from January 2024 SO UES, the System Operator of the Unified Energy System of Russia, which highly appreciated the Nornickel’s energy assets, will start working in the Norilsk energy system.
Partial transfer of functions will allow Norilsk to use the experience gained by the federal operator in the management, planning and development of energy assets, regardless of their geographical location. Joint work between Nornickel and SO UES began in June 2022 by signing an agreement at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
If we talk about the energy sector of the region as a whole, according to Krasnoyarskstat, for the ten months of 2022, 32.5 million gigacalories of steam and hot water were received in the Krasnoyarsk region, and 59.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were produced. Hydroelectric power plants of the region have generated 33.1 billion kilowatt-hours, thermal power plants – 26.6 billion kilowatt-hours.
In October 2022, 38 thousand people were employed in the energy sector of the region, which is 4.2 percent of the working population.
There is an opinion that the date was chosen for the Day of the Power Engineer also because on December 22 the longest night of the year begins in the northern hemisphere, and when, if not at this time, the importance of the energy industry which gives light and warmth to houses is most felt.
Earlier, we wrote about the completion of a seven-year program to replace hydroelectric units at the Ust-Hantayskaya HPP, the northernmost underground hydroelectric power plant in the world. Last year, the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company (NTEC) completed this project.
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Text: Marina Horoshevskaya, Photos: Artyom Finn, Marina Peshkova and Nikolay Shchipko
