Stimulating Electricity Consumption in Outsider Regions is a Necessary Condition for the Structural Stability of Russia

Abstract

Currently, there is a worldwide increase in electricity per capita consumption (EPC). However, this trend is due to the growth of electricity consumption in developing countries, while in developed countries there is a process of its stabilization and even reduction. Thus, it can be said that there is a decrease in the differentiation in specific electricity consumption between developed and developing countries. In Russia, in 1990–2012 there was an increase in regional divergence in this indicator. As a result, the difference in the specific power capacity between the leading regions and outsider ones reached a 20-fold value. In the regions of the south of Russia, the EPC is lower than in a number of developing countries. But if the latter are on the road of increasing the EPC and, as a result, increasing labor productivity, then in the Russian outsider regions there is a decrease in it. Low specific power capacity is one of the reasons for the insufficient level of labor productivity. A pattern of increasing profitability of goods, works, and services sold has been revealed as the specific consumption of electricity increases in Russian regions of low electric specific power capacity and decreases in Russian regions of the high one. It is shown that the negative trend of differentiation of power consumption in the regions of Russia changed in 2013–2018 to convergence. It is substantiated that in the outsider regions, the limiting factor in the growth of electricity consumption is not the lack of energy capacity, but the insufficient development of the electricity consumption sector. Therefore, in order to ensure the structural stability of the Russian economy, efforts should be focused on stimulating non-household electricity consumption by developing the processing industries of the economy, creating industrial and agricultural enterprises in regions with low electric power. Therefore, in order to ensure the structural stability of the Russian economy, efforts should be focused on stimulating non-household electricity consumption by developing the processing industries of the economy, creating industrial and agricultural enterprises in regions of low electric specific power capacity.