Electric power is what? Development and problems of the Russian electric power industry

The industry of any country consists of a large number of diverse industries, such as engineering or electric power. These are the directions in which a particular country is developing, and different states can have different emphases depending on many factors, such as natural resources, technological development, and so on. In this article we will discuss one very important and actively developing industry today - the electric power industry. Electric power is an industry that has developed continuously for many years, but it is in recent years that it has begun to actively move forward, pushing humanity to use more environmentally friendly energy sources.

What it is?

So, first of all it is necessary to understand what the given industry is in general. Electric power is an energy unit that is responsible for the production, distribution, transmission and sale of electricity. Among other branches of this field, it is the electric power industry that is the most popular and widespread for a variety of reasons. For example, due to the ease of its distribution, the possibility of transferring it over huge distances in the shortest time intervals, and also because of its versatility, electrical energy can be transformed without any problems into other types of energy, such as heat, light, chemical and so on Further. Thus, it is the development of this industry that gives great attention to the governments of world powers. Electric power is the industry behind which the future lies. This is how many people think, and that's why you need to learn more about it with the help of this article.

Progress in the production of electricity

So that you can fully understand how important this industry is to the world, you need to look at how the development of the electric power industry has been going on throughout its history. Immediately it is worth noting that the production of electricity is designated in billions of kilowatts per hour. In 1890, when the electric power industry was just beginning to develop, only nine billion kWh was produced. A big leap occurred in 1950, when more than a hundred times more electricity was produced. Since that moment, the development has proceeded with giant steps - every decade was added at once to several thousand billion kW / h. As a result, by 2013, the world's powers produced in the amount of 23,127 billion kW / h - an incredible figure that continues to grow every year. To date, most of the electricity produced by China and the United States of America - these two countries have the most developed branches of the electric power industry. China accounts for 23 per cent of the world's electricity, and the United States for 18 per cent. They are followed by Japan, Russia and India - each of these countries has at least four times less share in world electricity production. Well, now you also know the general geography of the electric power industry - it's time to move on to specific types of this industry.

Thermal power engineering

You already know that the electric power industry is the energy sector, and the energy itself, in its turn, is the industry as a whole. However, the branching does not end there - there are several kinds of electric power industry, some of them are very common and are used everywhere, others are not so popular. There are also alternative areas of electric power industry, where unconventional methods are used that allow achieving large-scale production of electricity without harm to the environment, as well as neutralizing all negative features of traditional methods. But first things first.

First of all, it is necessary to talk about thermal power engineering, since it is the most widespread and famous in the whole world. How is the electricity produced in this way? It is easy to guess that in this case there is a conversion of thermal energy into electrical energy, and heat is produced by burning various types of fuel. Cogeneration plants can be found in almost every country - this is the simplest and most convenient process for obtaining large amounts of energy at low costs. However, this process is one of the most harmful to the environment. Firstly, natural energy is used to generate electricity, which will someday be guaranteed to end. Secondly, combustion products are thrown into the atmosphere, poisoning it. That is why there are alternative methods of generating electricity. However, this is by no means all the traditional types of electric power industry - there are others, and further we will focus on them.

Nuclear power engineering

As in the previous case, when considering nuclear power engineering, much can be learned from the name. Generation of electricity in this case is carried out on nuclear reactors, where the splitting of atoms and the division of their nuclei occurs - as a result of these actions, a large energy release occurs, which then is transformed into electric energy. It is unlikely that anyone else knows that this is the most insecure electric power industry. Industry of not every country has its share in the world production of nuclear power. Any leakage from such a reactor can lead to catastrophic consequences - it is enough to recall Chernobyl, as well as the incidents in Japan. However, in recent years, more attention has been paid to safety, therefore, nuclear power plants are built further.

Hydropower engineering

Another popular way of generating electricity is to get it from water. This process occurs in hydroelectric power plants, it does not require either dangerous processes of nuclear fission, nor harmful combustion of fuel, but it also has its drawbacks. Firstly, this is a violation of the natural flow of rivers - dams are built on them, due to which a necessary flow of water into the turbines is created, due to which the energy is obtained. Often, because of the construction of dams, rivers, lakes and other natural reservoirs are drained and destroyed, so it can not be said that this is an ideal option for this energy sector. Accordingly, many enterprises of the electric power industry are turning not to traditional, but to alternative types of electricity.

Alternative Electricity Industry

Alternative electric power is a collection of types of electric power that are different from traditional ones mainly in that they do not require the application of any type of harm to the environment, nor do they expose anyone to danger. We are talking about hydrogen, tidal, wave and many other varieties. The most common of these are wind and solar energy. It is they who are accentuated - many believe that it is behind them the future of this industry. What is the essence of these species?

Wind energy is the production of electricity from the wind. Windmills are built in the fields, which work very efficiently and make it possible to provide energy not much worse than the previously described methods, but only the wind is needed for the operation of windmills. Naturally, the disadvantage of this method is that the wind is a natural element that can not be subordinated to itself, but scientists are working to improve the functionality of modern windmills. As for solar energy, here the electricity is obtained from the sun's rays. As in the case with the previous view, it is also necessary to work on increasing the storage capacity, since the sun does not always shine - and even if the weather is cloudless, in any case at some point the night comes when the solar panels are not capable of producing electricity.

Transmission of electricity

Well, now you know all the main types of electricity, however, as you could already understand from the definition of the term electricity, the receipt is not limited to everything. Energy must be transferred and distributed. Thus, electrical energy is transmitted through power lines. These are metal conductors that create one large electrical network around the world. Earlier, air lines were most often used - you can see them along the roads, which are thrown from one post to another. However, in recent years, cable lines are gaining in popularity, which are laid underground.

History of the development of the Russian electric power industry

The electric power industry of Russia began to develop at the same time as the world one in 1981, when the transmission of electric power for the first time was successfully carried out for almost two hundred kilometers. In the realities of pre-revolutionary Russia, the electric power industry was incredibly underdeveloped - the annual electricity output to such a huge country was only 1.9 billion kW / h. When the revolution took place, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin proposed a plan for the electrification of Russia, the implementation of which was launched immediately. Already by 1931, the plan was conceived, but the speed of development was so impressive that by 1935 the plan was overfulfilled three times. Thanks to this reform, by 1940, annual electricity generation in Russia amounted to 50 billion kW / h, which is twenty-five times more than before the revolution. Unfortunately, sharp progress was interrupted by the Second World War, but after its completion, the work was restored, and by 1950 the Soviet Union produced 90 billion kilowatt-hours, which accounted for about ten percent of the world's electricity generation worldwide. By the mid-sixties, the Soviet Union had become the world's second largest producer of electricity and second only to the United States. The situation remained at the same high level until the collapse of the USSR, when the electric power industry was not the only industry that was badly affected by this event. In 2003, a new Federal Law on Electricity was signed, within which the rapid development of this industry in Russia should take place in the coming decades. And the country is definitely moving in this direction. However, it is one thing - to sign the Federal Law on Electricity, and quite another - to implement it. This is exactly what will be discussed later. You will learn about the current problems of the electric power industry in Russia, as well as the ways to solve them.

Excess of power generating capacity

The electric power industry of Russia is already in a much better condition than it was ten years ago, so it can be safely said that progress is underway. However, at the recently held energy forum, the main problems of this industry in the country were revealed. And the first of them is the excess of power generating capacity, which was caused by the mass construction of low-power power plants in the USSR instead of building a small number of high-power plants. All these stations still need to be serviced, so there are two ways out of the situation. The first is the withdrawal of capacities from operation. This option would be ideal, if not for the huge cost of such a project. Therefore, Russia will most likely move towards a second exit, namely, an increase in consumption.

Import substitution

After the introduction of the western stations, the Russian industry was very acutely aware of its dependence on foreign supplies, which also affected the electric power industry, where practically no one in the modern spheres of activity was involved in the full production process of specific generators exclusively in the territory of the Russian Federation. Accordingly, the government plans to increase production capacity in the right directions, control their localization, and also try to get rid of the dependence on imports as much as possible.

Fresh air

The problem is that modern Russian companies working in the electric power industry are very polluting air. However, the Ministry of the Environment of the Russian Federation tightened the legislation and began to collect fines for violation of established norms more often. Unfortunately, the companies suffering from this do not plan to try to optimize their production - they are throwing every effort to crush the "green" quantity, and require a softening of the legislation.

Billions of debt

To date, the total debt of users of electricity throughout Russia is about 460 billion Russian rubles. Naturally, if at the disposal of the country were all the money that she owed, then she could significantly develop the electricity industry. Therefore, the government plans to tighten penalties for arrears in paying bills for electricity, and will also encourage those who do not want to pay bills in the future, install their own solar panels and supply themselves with energy themselves.

Regulated market

The most important problem of the domestic electric power industry is the complete regulating of the market. In European countries, the regulation of the energy market is almost completely absent, there is a real competition, so the industry is developing at a tremendous pace. All these rules and regulations hamper development very much, and as a result, the Russian Federation has already started purchasing electricity from Finland, where the market is practically not regulated. The only solution to this problem is the transition to a free market model and a complete rejection of regulation.