Russian electricity exports to Asia growing – minister

Russia’s electricity supplies to China and Mongolia will see an overall 20% jump by the end of this year, Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov has said.

Estimates by the Russian energy giant Inter RAO suggest that the country has supplied a record 4.4-4.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electrical power to China in 2022. Data shows that China’s electricity consumption had risen in December due to colder weather. This has also pushed demand for coal and gas for heating higher.

“This year [2022] we can talk about the growth of eastbound [electricity] exports, that is, total exports to China and Mongolia have increased by 20%, and there will be an uptick of about 16% to China by the end of the year,” Shulginov revealed last week in an interview with the TV channel Rossiya-24.

Inter RAO’s data shows the volume of electricity supplies to China last year amounted to 3.97 billion kWh, which was 29.9% more than in 2020. Exports to Mongolia in 2021 rose to 0.49 billion kWh, up 55.9% in annual terms.

Inter RAO supplies electricity to China through three transmission lines that are capable of delivering up to 7 billion kilowatt-hours of electrical power per year.

In the past 30 years since it started buying electricity from Russia, China has imported over 30,000 GWh. The power is used in the three northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin.

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