At the end of December, the aggressor’s government, represented by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, signed the prescript “extending the forced generation status of thermal power plants until 2029.”
Among the facilities mentioned in the document are the “Sevastopol Small Gas Turbine Power Plant” (SGTPP or MGTES), the “Simferopol SGTPP”, and the “West Crimean SGTPP”, which allegedly “were not included in the capacity supply agreement program.”
These three “SGTPPs,” each with a capacity of approximately 130 megawatts, were commissioned by the aggressor in 2014, ostensibly for the “energy security” of the occupied peninsula, but in reality as part of its systemic militarization. They are illegally operated by the aggressor’s federal structure, “Rosseti Mobile GTES”.
ARC experts investigated this issue on the eve of the full-scale invasion, stating that during the first eight years of occupation, local “media” repeatedly claimed that the deployment of the SGTPPs in Crimea was supposedly a “temporary solution,”
but subsequently, having assessed the “benefits” of this project, the occupiers abandoned the “mobile” status of the plants and allowed them to “take root.” However, this isn’t just about supplying the occupiers’ military complex, but also about systemic, large-scale profiteering, since it is the “Crimean SGTPPs” that have been forcibly supplying electricity all these years at a “higher, forced tariff to recoup investments.”
Each previous extension of this “special regime,” costing billions of “tariff rubles,”
caused some grumbling among the aggressor’s “competing entities,” since it was obvious
that the “initial investment in the SGTPPs” would have long ago been covered by the described “tariff margin,” had it not disappeared “into obscurity.”
Therefore, it is not so surprising that the current “extension” of this “tariff vanity fair”
was preceded by some “media preparation.” A couple of weeks ago, the “general director of the unified dispatch center of the Southern Russian power system,” Vyacheslav Afanasyev, announced a projected electricity shortage of 1,000 megawatts in Crimea in the coming years, citing the alleged “inability to carry out major repairs on foreign equipment under sanctions.”
As a reminder, the “Balaklava TPP” and the “Tavricheskaya TPP”, built by the occupiers in Crimea later that SGTPPs, used “Siemens” turbines, illegally delivered to the peninsula.
We reported that just three weeks ago, the aggressor’s propaganda announced plans to build the 135-megawatt “Trudovaya gas turbine power plant” on the occupied peninsula.
At the same time, the facility’s purpose, aimed at further militarizing the occupied peninsula, was not particularly concealed, with an emphasis on its “Russian equipment” in the form of six “GTA-25” gas turbine units produced by the sanctioned “Rostec” subsidiary, the “United Engine Corporation”.
However, the scams surrounding the development of the “Trudovaya” gas turbine power plant project will clearly only complement the occupiers’ current machinations with “special tariffs” for “Crimean SGTPPs.”
