At the 19th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Ministry of North Caucasus Affairs and Rosseti signed an agreement on cooperation aimed at the integrated development of the regional power grid and improvement of payment discipline in the North Caucasian Federal District.

The document was signed by the Minister of the Russian Federation for North Caucasus Affairs Lev Kuznetsov and Rosseti’s General Director Oleg Budargin.

Within the agreement the Ministry of North Caucasus Affairs and Rosseti will coordinate their actions to improve the safety of electricity supply, the growth of energy efficiency of the regional power grid, strengthening the payment discipline of the electricity consumers in the territory of the North Caucasian Federal District, improving the system of data collection and subsequent distribution of payments.

As Lev Kuznetsov said, the Agreement becomes the basis for long-term cooperation between the Ministry and Rosseti Group and will facilitate the transition from the territorial principle of building electricnetworks to a single power grid in the North Caucasian Federal District. 'Implementation of this agreement will contribute to the implementation of the state program of development of regions of North Caucasian Federal District as well as the implementation of investment program of Rosseti. The Ministry of North Caucasus Affairs being a body responsible for the economic development of the District undertakes the administrative and coordinating function. Rosseti acts in this case as an expert with the necessary expertise to work out technological issues related to the actualization of integrated development programs of electric networks. That all will allow the parties to come to the harmonized development of the whole electricity industry of the North Caucasus Federal District rather than its separate parts in different regions,' the Minister said.

Under the agreement the Ministry of North Caucasus Affairs and Rosseti will cooperate on prospective development of electric power industry of the North Caucasian Federal District, with electric networks of 35 kV and above, establishment and operation of the Interregional Shared Service Centre in the North Caucasian Federal District charging and collecting payments in particular.

'This agreement among other things is aimed at solving the current problems with payment discipline which lead to an increase of consumers debts to energy suppliers. Shared Service Centre receiving payments in the territory of the North Caucasian Federal District should solve this problem while providing reliable customers todiscounts. This Centre will also significantly simplify the procedure of collecting the documents to connect to power grid,' Rosseti’s General Director said. At the same time, as Oleg Budargin noted, one of the key objectives of the agreement is to provide reliable power supply to all consumers.

The agreement also includes the development and implementation of energy-efficient and energy-saving technologies in the electric power industry and creating conditions for their widespread use during the operation, construction and reconstruction of power grid infrastructure in the North Caucasian Federal District.