About events

In Russian there is a special concern about untimely payment of Housing and Communal Services. Over the last year, the number of non-payers has grown, and very often it happens not due to the absence of opportunities but owing to forgetfulness.

The efficient ways to reduce debts for utility services were discussed by participants of the session «Smart Housing and Communal Services: Cases of Implementing Digital Solutions for Automated Operation of Housing and Communal Services» within the International Exhibition «Housing and Communal Services of Russia – 2024».

According to the data provided by Anton Lomakin, the head of the Utility Payments product of Tinkoff Bank JSC, from July 2023 to July 2022 the scope of debt for this service increased by 8.7% having amounted to 833.5 billion rubles. An average collectability of payments around the country amounted to 94–96%. As of the beginning of the Q4 2023, 7.9 people were listed as having debts in Russia.

The indebtedness was mainly caused by customer forgetfulness, Anton Lomakin continues. They account for 47% of respondents. Next there are items «unstable earnings» (25%) and «it is inconvenient to pay for utility services every month» (13%).

To solve the debt issue in respect of the utility services the company has referred to the foreign experience where collectability of payments amounts to 98–99%. It was decided to focus on the notices and bills in the mobile application, which produced the first results. With a direct agreement between the management company or resource provider and Tinkoff Bank, frequency of customer payments increased from 24% to 45%, Anton Lomakin underlined.

Andrey Zheleznov, the General Director of R.O.S.DOLG Agency, told about how automation of business processes affects the efficiency of pre-judicial recovery of utility debts. He reminded that the company ranks first in the country in this area. It operates in 50 Russian regions and collects 3.5 billion rubles annually. The expert added that the pre-trial work costs twice as cheap as litigation.

«Moreover, growth of collections falls on the first months of work, which is impossible to ensure at the court stage, when one can wait for the receipt of the first money about five months later. An average debt amount processed is 20 thousand rubles. These are not bank loans for millions of rubles, such money can be found. We are making a massive effect on a debtor – create mental discomfort and encourage them to pay, but strictly within the scope of the law», Andrey Zheleznov said.

According to the expert, at the start, only a debtor’s address and a debt amount are available for the company. That is why absence of the customer contacts was one of the major problems. We had the phone numbers of 16% of consumers only, which made interaction very complicated: other debtors can be contacted only in person or by sending a letter. As a result, the company independently looks for the contacts which takes about a week. Today, the base of the agency’s verified contacts has reached 5 million addresses, which accounts for 10% households of Russia.

According to Andrey Zheleznov, the agency has three strategies of dealing with debts that differ in terms of intensity. Calls and visits to addresses require high involvement of the personnel while the staff is less involved in case of e-mail messaging, sending messages in messengers and by SMS, and automatic informers. The last actions are performed automatically. Following involvement of the agency, payment collections increased 11-fold for 21 months.

Dmitry Poltorak, the ideologist and architect of the automation projects of Lartech, has reminded that Autonomous Non-Profit Organization «Smart Multi-Family House» has been operating in Russia since 2022, which prepares recommendations to form the standards of the same-name project. As part of this project, the efforts were joined by the key developers, telecommunication operators, software developers and equipment manufacturers.

The aim of the organization is to form the regulation that will facilitate making and mass implementing of solutions for smart multi-family houses.

«This is the issue of both economy development and security, as housing and communal services are the key area where we’d rather not depend on foreign solutions», Dmitry Poltorak underlined.

A concept of the housing digitalization industry development was elaborated within Autonomous Non-Profit Organization «Smart Multi-Family House», Dmitry Poltorak continued.

«It became clear that it makes no sense to establish the unified standard of a smart multi-family house, but it is necessary to bring the existing regulatory legal acts into conformity with the present-day requirements. For instance, construction standards and regulations of the 1980th are still functioning in the field of lighting. Or take a door phone plate the requirements to which have not changed since the old Soviet times», Dmitry Poltorak underlined. He informed that as a result, there were some difficulties with installation of modern door phones in Moscow when implementing the renovation program, and specialists had to seek other ways to replace the equipment.

Over 70 regulatory and technical documents are scheduled for the development and updating for the near future, said Dmitry Poltorak.

«Moreover, we are talking about both on creation and updating of state standards and on modernization of the code of practice with an opportunity of annual updating. Then it will be the living history and not just a non-functioning thing handed down or from the side», he stated.

To make Russian heat supply more reliable and safer, it is necessary to change the industry management system and to increase liability of all parties involved in the process of heat supply. Such an opinion was arrived at by the participants of the round-table discussion «Improving Reliability and Safety of Heat Supply Systems».

The country’s utility infrastructure is not only worn out and lacks financing. The participants of the round-table discussion acknowledged the fact that accidents are often caused by low control level, insufficient number of heat supply schemes, heavy network load due to new housing construction, poor condition of facilities operated by Russian Railways, Ministry of Defense and other agencies.

Public authorities take measures to improve the situation, told Aleksei Eresko, the Deputy Minister of Construction Industry, Housing and Utilities Sector of RF, for example, they are constantly monitoring utility accidents, which makes it possible to obtain relevant information on the state of the system and reasons of the incidents. A number of other steps are planned to be made. For example, according to Aleksei Eresko, at present, certificates of the utility facilities readiness are not required to be executed and no sanctions are provided for the absence thereof. This shortcoming should be mandatorily eliminated and to introduce punishments from fines to depriving the owners of the right to use such property, he noted. Provision of full information on the incidents should also be another prerequisite for any given region being included in the infrastructure reconstruction and modernization programs. The Deputy Minister believes that drawing up heating schemes should be transferred from the municipal to the regional level, as municipals just often lack the required competencies.

Nikolay Isakov, the Executive Director of the Russian Gas Society, talked about the offers to improve payment discipline. As he stated, the citizens’ debt for the utility and communal services currently reaches 1.5 trillion rubles, of which over 740 billion rubles are the debts for heat supply.

«This is a systemic problem, and we can not talk about modernization without solving it», Nikolay Isakov considers. However, the expert added that this problem is created to a great extent by intermediaries, that is by management companies, cash settlement centers, concession companies that often fail to transfer the collected funds to the resource providers. 

Russian Gas Society suggests to reduce the number of non-disconnectable heat consumers and to impose subsidiary liability for their debts on municipal and regional authorities, to increase liability of intermediaries, and to seek direct agreements between heat consumers and utility providers; such system in gas supply has led to nearly one-hundred percent payment, Nikolay Isakov gave an example.

In his turn, Boris Gladkikh, a member of the RF State Duma Energy Committee, also told on the legislative initiatives on reforming the heating industry.

«It is necessary to increase liability of all process participants», the deputy thinks. He is sure that the times when management companies could ignore the requirements of laws and regulations will soon come to an end.

There was an opening ceremony of the XII Russian International Energy Forum, International Exhibition «Housing and Communal Services of Russia», Exhibition-Congress «Rustproofing».

The participants of the event were welcomed by Aleksei Eresko, the Deputy Minister of Construction Industry, Housing and Utilities Sector of RF. He pointed out that the ExpoForum venue features important industries that closely connected with residents and that influence the life quality of citizens. He added that at the International Exhibition «Housing and Communal Services of Russia» the latest achievements of the housing and communal branches that are extremely important for the development of the country and social sphere are showcased.

Sergey Kropachev, the Vice-Governor of Saint Petersburg, has also greeted the event participants and expressed separate gratitude to the management of ExpoForum International for organization of the exposition dedicated to the power engineering heroes of blockaded Leningrad. He noted that such Exhibition is important for upbringing of the oncoming generation and for commemoration of the feat of Leningrad inhabitants.

Evgeny Razumishkin, the Vice-Governor of Saint Petersburg, hopes that the participants will be able to establish a lot of business contacts both with the Chinese colleagues and with the companies from various regions of the country.

Moreover, the exhibitors have a lot to show indeed, pointed out Dmitry Nikitin, the General Director of RESTEC exhibition association LLC. Recent achievements of companies operating in the Housing and Communal Services and Fuel and Power Sector demonstrate that the Russian companies are capable of competing successfully both with each other and with foreign colleagues.

Sergey Voronkov, the General Director of ExpoForum International, stated that the primary task of the organizers was to make the Russian International Energy Forum a showcase of new achievements.

«This is a meeting point to discuss new trends and our achievements, to address the issues related to the future, work with the youth. Within three days we will be able to work at the exhibitions «Energy and Electrical Engineering», «Housing and Communal Services of Russia», as well as at the Exhibition-Congress «Rustproofing». More than 200 exhibitors from 20 RF constituent entities and 10 countries will take part in the event. The RIEF congress program includes over 30 events. The key topic will be the development of safety of such strategic sectors as Housing and Communal Services and Energy Engineering», Sergey Voronkov said.

Creation of own system for certification of anti-corrosion protection specialists and the need to unify standards were discussed by the participants of the plenary session within the International Scientific and Practical Conference «Current Issues of Rustproofing».

After foreign suppliers of paint coatings left the Russian market, the domestic manufacturers were granted a wonderful chance to develop and release their own products. However, for the consumers and manufacturers to be sure of the product quality, there is a need for specialists who are familiar with the technology and are capable of monitoring the production process, considers Pavel Stepanov, the Director for Development – Head of the Personnel Certification Department of the Certification Association «Russian Register».

According to the expert, in the rustproofing area it is necessary to form a system of certification and attestation of inspector specialists, as FROSIO and NACE, the leading international companies in this field, suspended the issue and extension of their certificates. In this regard, Pavel Stepanov has drawn the attention of the audience to the training and certification program that the association «Russian Register» already developed over 10 years ago. The inspectors trained under the program are highly-demanded in shipbuilding, construction, manufacture of oil and gas equipment, and the organization is ready to qualify the holders of FROSIO certificates on a fast-track basis.

Artem Polosminnikov, the Director of the Standardization Center of ANO «Institute of Oil and Gas Technological Initiatives» (IOGTI), is confident that there is no certification without standardization.

According to him, IOGTI has already developed over 200 standards regarding the basic equipment groups in close cooperation with its developers and manufacturers, as well as with the largest oil and gas companies, such as Gazprom, Transneft, etc. Artem Polosminnikov underlined that the IOGTI experts try not to duplicate the existing GOSTs, do not compete with them but take them into account. He also added that today the work is performed to create a unified standardization system in Russia.

Many session participants have also addressed the issues of standardization. There are quite a number of centers involved in the standard development, stated Pavel Yudin, the Chief Scientific Officer of Samara Science and Production Center. Large oil and gas companies have their own centers and it often happens that they issue their own requirements that are insignificantly different from GOST. As a result, a manufacturer has to undergo certification again in each of the centers in order to comply with the customer’s product procurement requirements. Pavel Yudin also added that at the same time some of the highly-demanded GOSTs have internal contradictions that make it impossible to comply with them.

Nikolay Petrov, the Executive Director of SOPCOR Association, the Chairperson of МТК 543/ТК 214 has also addressed the need of unifying the standards developed by various agencies and organizations. For instance, he pointed out that there are situations when different technical committees issue different GOSTs in respect of essentially the same products. The problem is also the fact that some national standards that are being implemented now are actually copied from the international standards ISO and still contain the references to the foreign test methods and patents, noted the expert.

Visitors of the Exhibition will be able to learn the stories and see faces of outstanding specialists whose cases were classified until quite recently.

During the exposition opening ceremony, the red ribbon was cut by Sergey Voronkov, the President of the Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs, the General Director of ExpoForum International, and by Sergey Kropachev, Saint Petersburg Vice-Governor. As it was noted by Petr Tishchenko, the Chairperson of the Archives Committee of Saint Petersburg Government, the exhibition tells not only about the heroic deed of power engineers and power supply of blockaded Leningrad, but also reveals the history of creating the city power supply system in pre-war years and after-war recovery. He pointed out that the exhibits include fragments of the electric power line that was passing on the bottom of Ladoga Lake.

«On these stands we have shown faces of people who created this miracle. They were made secret and their personal files are in the party archive. Today it is the first time we present them to you, because each heroic feat deserves memory and glory», said Petr Tishchenko.

Faina Nedbai, the Director of the Central State Archive of Scientific-Technical Documentation of St. Petersburg, stated that it became possible to hold the exhibition thanks to the dedicated work of the predecessors who created the archival documents. It is them, and historical materials provided by Lenhydroproject JSC and Rosseti Lenenergo PJSC that have formed the basis for this exhibition.

Sergey Voronkov underlined that the idea of the exhibition belongs to the Vice-Governor Sergey Kropachev.

«By applying to our egregore, to our immortal regiment, you understand that impossible is nothing. Our past inspires us to solving problems in present and striving for the future», said Sergey Voronkov.

The exhibition contains two central blocks, one of which outlines the history of the national power engineering system, and the second one tells about some of the key persons. In particular, visitors can learn on implementation of the GOELRO plan in the NorthWest Russia, on the feats of power engineers during the blockade, including on the operation of laying the «Cable of Life» on the bottom of Ladoga Lake and on many other things.

On October 24–26, the ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre is hosting the Russian International Energy Forum (RIEF-2024).

The RIEF-24 key event will be a plenary session «Development of the Russian Energy in Present-Day Conditions. New Challenges: Internal and External». In total, the congress program includes more than 30 events.

The Forum traditionally hosts the «Energy and Electrical Engineering» Exhibition that is held by ExpoForum together with the RESTEC Exhibition Association. The International Exhibition-Congress «Rustproofing», the International Exhibition «Housing and Communal Services of Russia», the St. Petersburg Technical Trade Fair and the Exhibition of Innovations HI-TECH 2024 have also been deployed on the same venue.

In total, the exhibition will include over 200 companies from Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Belarus, China. At the collective exposition of the Chinese city Harbin (20 companies) the visitors will learn everything on the high-tech and innovative production facilities of the friendly state.

All projects are expected to host over 8 thousand participants and visitors from 20 regions of Russia, CIS and non-CIS countries – public officials, representatives of the large power generating and industrial companies, scientific community, industry organizations and associations.

During the days of the event, shuttle buses run from Moskovskaya Metro Station to the ExpoForum. Due to escalation of the security measures, a search is made at the entrance to the venue. You are kindly requested to show understanding, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

Within the first working day of the XII Russian International Energy Forum, the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences presented its forecast for the development of the world and Russian energy sector up to 2050. This year, it was for the first time that the artificial intelligence has taken part in working on the forecast.

As was noted in his opening remarks by Aleksei Makarov, the Research Adviser of the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the RAS Academician, the institute has been developing scenario forecasts since 2010 and this year has used the artificial intelligence tools for the analysis for the first time. Another specific feature of the research was the need to take into account the factors of impact made by future world order scenarios on the energy markets, Aleksei Makarov.

The results of such large-scale work were provided by the team members of the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences: the research was presented by Vyacheslav Kulagin, Head of the Department for Research of the World and Russian Energy Complex of the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Anna Galkina and Dmitry Grushevenko, senior research fellows of the institute.

Three scenarios of the world energy development are considered as the most probable by researchers. These scenarios were named «Fog», «Split» and «Key», but one can hardly suppose now which of them will be implemented.

«Fog» implies restriction of the world trade, application of the practice of trade barriers and sanctions, reserved nature of the world capital cross-flow and limited technology transfer opportunities. In the «Fog», the countries are predominantly based on their own economic interests, and the globalization issues go into the background.

The situation of «Split» implies that there appear two poles in the world between which material restrictions for the commodity flows are formed, but there is active trade inside these blocks. However, some of the countries remain outside the poles and is still trading with everyone.

The «Key» scenario is the most optimistic one for the global energy market: the world finds a mechanism that enables to resolve contradictions and reach compromise solutions on the key issues of further development, the trade barrier practice is dead and buried, all countries act in concert to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and solve global tasks together.

According to the research data, the main trends of the global energy development are similar in all three scenarios. The world economic growth rates will not exceed 1.9–2.5%, that is the global economy will be 1.5 times as slow as compared with the period of 1990–2021. Population growth, which is an important factor for the energy development forecasting, will also slow down in all regions, except for Africa, where there will be by 25% more people by 2050 than now, as well as Asian developing countries where reproduction of the population number is expected.

Global need for the electric power will still depend on the demand for the manufactured goods, and by 2050, industrial energy consumption will amount to 19–28%. Just like today, high-temperature industry (heavy engineering, metallurgy) will be provided with energy generated from coal and gas, and the low-temperature industry will transfer to the electric energy. By 2050, the world share of domestic consumption will be 37–41%, and, the higher is the average income indicators the higher will be the need for electric energy. However, as noted by the researchers, there is still some income threshold upon reach whereof the demand for electric energy stops growing, and the issues of energy saving start prevailing.
The structure of the world energy balance will also change. If electric energy consumption grows by 40-90% by 2050 («Fog» and «Key» scenarios), 62% to 66% of the additional generation will be provided with the renewable energy sources (RES) by 2035 already, and by 2050 the RES share in the production structure may reach 100%. Electric energy generation using solar power will grow 5–9 times, of wind energy – 3–7 times. However, this will lead to the 3-7-fold increase of the prime cost thereof, so each state will have to form its generation structure and energy balance at its own discretion.
Authors of the research also expect an active growth of interest to the nuclear energy: in Russia, the NPP generation will grow by 7.1%, in France – by 9.7%, in the USA – by 22.2%, and in China – by 28.9%. The overwhelming majority of countries will increase consumption and generation of nuclear energy, NPP will appear in places where there were no such plants up to now, for example, in Turkey, Poland, Egypt, Vietnam.

However, this does not mean that such traditional primary energy sources as gas, oil and coal will become obsolete. «During the entire period of up to 2050 the world energy engineering will resemble a four-wheel car: oil, gas, coal, renewable and zero-carbon sources. Each of such «wheels» will be of importance, but, unlike previous periods, a place on the guiding axle will be occupied by gas and RES», Anna Galkina explained.

The world consumer structure will also change: the role of the developed countries will be reduced by 2050, and the electric energy will primarily be exported by North America and Australia and imported by Europe, Japan and South Korea. The BRICS block will become the most significant player on the world market by 2050, that will account for up to half of energy generation and consumption.

The speakers have separately focused on the Russian energy development prospects. According to their forecasts, by 2050, the country’s electric power generation will approximately by 15–36%, up to 1.3–1.5 trillion kWh. Natural gas will remain the basis of the Russian electric power supply and will provide for 54–56% of the primary energy demand, and the share of non-carbon sources (NPP, hydro-energy, RES) will grow from 10% in 2021 to 11–14% in 2050. Meanwhile, in the upcoming period, the role of coal as the raw stuff for generating electric power will be reduced in all scenarios, the «Fog» and «Key» options also imply reduction in oil consumption for the power generation.

In general, the Russian Fuel and Energy Complex has favourable prospects of the development both on the domestic and the export markets. The study points out that for such prospects to come true the key principles of the domestic and foreign policy in the energy industry development are required to be revised. This includes implementation of a range of measures necessary to activate national developments of new technologies and software for the key segments of Fuel and Energy Complex and related industries; creating a competitive domestic market of electric energy and complete waiver of cross-subsidies; encouraging energy saving and energy efficiency; modernizing sales, production and logistic facilities of the Fuel and Energy Complex, including with the use of the smart and digital systems, automation, artificial intelligence on the basis of home-grown technologies. In order to expand the electric energy export volumes, the scientists of the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences advise to build up the infrastructure for delivery to the regions having growing demand for the electricity, in particular, to the developing countries of Asia, as well as to develop a «huge market of equipment, services and staff training».

«These segments’ financial turnovers often highly competitive with the indicators of the world trade of energy resources. Russia with its competencies in the Fuel and Energy Complex could fill a significant niche in this segment», Vyacheslav Kulagin summarized. 

On April 23–28, the competitions of the All Russian Federation of DanceSport, Breaking and Acrobatic Rock’n’Roll are held in Pavilion H of ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The competitions will take place under the European and Latin American program, as well as in double event in four age categories: children, juniors, youth, adults.

On the competition days, free shuttle buses run from the Moskovskaya metro station to the Pavilion H. Due to the safety requirements, entry into the ExpoForum parking in your private car is only possible from Sokolinaya street. One should allocate time for a vehicle search.

You are kindly requested to show understanding, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

On April 20–21, the ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre hosts the Exhibition «We are Building a House. Spring 2024.»

The exhibition is one of the Russia’s largest construction, repair and design exhibitions.

The exhibition will present: suburban real estate, ready-made houses, baths, house kits, gazebos, building materials, construction technologies, engineering systems, communications, fireplaces, stoves, chimneys, house interior and design, furniture and decorations, tools and machines, a smart house and much more.

There will also be a We Are Building a House Show and an interior showroom where the leading companies and manufacturers will hold fascinating lectures, master classes, sessions of questions and answers.

During the event, free shuttle buses will run from Moskovskaya Metro station to Expoforum.