The federal government of Russia has adopted a resolution amending the phased liberalisation of the wholesale electricity market.
According to the new ruling, the share of the unregulated electricity market will be reviewed twice per year, on 1 January and 1 July, while the exact volumes of electricity to be sold on the wholesale market at regulated prices for the period until 2011 have been set out. Specifically, they will be 90-95% from 1 January to 30 June 2007 and will fall by 5% every six months to reach 15-20% from 1 July to 31 December 2010.
The fully competitive wholesale market will be launched on 1 January 2011. However, until that time, regardless of the wholesale market liberalisation phase, electricity will be sold to households at regulated prices.
Previous regulations provided that the share of electricity traded on the wholesale market at regulated prices would be reduced once a year, originally set at 90-95% of the total amount of electricity generation/consumption for 2007.
