Mobile Edition
Print
Get the Mag
Weekly Updates1. ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT TASKS
The economy of any country may be evaluated according to the development level of its energy infrastructure. Economic development is directly related with infrastructure adapted to industrial development possibilities and supply of energy resources. Therefore, the growing price of energy resources and expensive infra structure is becoming the key issue while solving questions of economic development and integration; and this factor may turn into the one that influences the speed of economic growth of the country the most. Attention of the society to energy sector development is related to the need of welfare growth as well as the aspiration to have safe and ecologically harmonised environment (Staniskis et al., 2005).
The activity of electricity production, transmission and distribution assures the supply of energy resources and thus creates the ground for welfare of the society. However, the side effect of this activity is the rapid use of nonrenewable resources and negative impact on the surrounding environment. Operating power plants that use organic fuel emit S[O.sub.2], N[O.sub.x], N[H.sub.3] as side combustion products and other hazardous particles to the environment, high-tension transmission networks cause an increased electromagnetic radiation (Staniskis et al., 2004). These factors harm the biological variety of environment, human health and activity products of people, i.e., the quality of agriculture products, buildings, construction materials, etc.
While performing its activity and estimating energy production or transmission costs, an electricity producer estimates costs related to environment protection. Environment protection costs encompass all ecology measures applied by the company: from expenses to the evaluation of particular work places from the health protection point of view, equipment and devices that reduce harmful effect, purchase of more ecological fuel and more effective technologies, property operation and amortisation deductions that enable to accumulate funds for the upgrade of technologies to taxes for the use of natural resources and pollution permits. However, such applied measures are not sufficient to fully regard the effect made on the environmental system. There exist environmental protection costs that are not related to direct production costs incurred by the company, such costs are "external", even though due to this specific activity the society also incurs expenses, which are "relegated" to the health care system or groups of inhabitants that experience losses due to low-quality agricultural products and additional property operational costs. Thermal power stations that use organic fuel--coal, fuel oil, gas--make the greatest impact on the environment in the electricity sector (Staniskis et al., 2005).
It is stated in the report on energy resources announced by the World Energy Council in 2001 that "there are sufficient resources in every region of the world that would satisfy the growing energy demand even in the 21st century; however, there are no new special technologies that would markedly reduce the part of organic fuel in the general energy balance in the nearest future" (World Energy Council, 2001). This is why sustainable development of the energy system and efforts to combine rational production limiting down the use of resources, maximal efficiency and reduction of negative impact on the environment are becoming significant task. It is known that fuel costs form slightly more than one third of costs in the structure of energy production costs at thermal power stations. The remaining part of costs is capital and management costs. In wind and hydro power plants, the capital and management costs form up to 95 percent of all costs (see Figure 1) (Juozaitis, 2007). Therefore, it is important to apply effective property management methods of energy infrastructure, such as quantity optimize, resource control and property accounting.
According to the 2001/77/EC Directive of the European Union Parliament and Council as of July 27, 2001, member states should endeavour that the part of renewable energy would make more than 12% in the general energy balance and 22.1% in the electricity balance of the country including hydro power plants in year 2010. In the National Energy Strategy, Lithuania confirms its obligations to the European Union regarding the implementation of greater use of renewable energy resources for electricity generation. After constructing wind power plants and thermal power stations using biomass fuel, the part of renewable resources in the general electricity production balance will make about 7% by year 2010. At the moment energy production from renewable resources, including hydro energy, amounts to 4%.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
As the economy of Lithuania is growing and the demand for electricity is increasing, the planned decommissioning of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in 2009 will have an essential impact on the supply of reliable electric power. Table 1 presents the forecasts of capacities and capacity balances present in Lithuanian power plants (prepared according to the methodology of the European Transmission System Operators Association).
Presently up to 80% of electricity necessary for the needs of Lithuania is generated at Ignalina NPP. Nuclear power uses relatively small amounts of nuclear fuel in the generation process, its transportation is not complicated, its impact on the environment is not big, very small amounts of hazardous substances and substances causing "heat effect" are emitted to the environment.
The use possibilities of the majority of renewable energy resources potential are limited; therefore, the use of renewable energy resources will form an essential technological part in the world energy balance only after 3040 years (World Energy Council, 2001). Thus, it would not be possible to secure satisfaction of the society needs without the created, operating and regularly upgraded and modernised production, transmission and distribution infrastructure. The surging price of energy resources and its generation will encourage to consider all possibilities of reducing production costs by implementing technologies saving resources, by assessing the necessity of ecological measures and by applying rational management methods. As new requirements for infrastructure management are set and attempts are made to control and reduce its impact on the environment, it is necessary to use for valid methods of infrastructure property management, assessment and analysis (Staniskis and Stasiskiene, 2006).
2. FEATURES OF ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE
Solving issues of balanced development and operation, accepting management solutions, it is important to assess the production, transmission and distribution costs that would cover both--direct internal costs and external environmental impact assessment costs.
The level of internal production, transmission and distribution costs directly depends on the value of property used for activity, incurred operational costs, amortisation deductions. Therefore, the accounting of assessed correct property value in companies' accounting documents is one of the more important indexes while calculating the production, transmission and distribution costs. This is also required by International Accounting Standards regulating companies' property accounting.
The electricity system of Lithuania unites energy producers which use diverse energy resources for production: nuclear power, organic fuel (gas, fuel oil, oremulsion), renewable energy resources (water, wind, geothermal energy) and suppliers engaged in electric energy transmission and distribution.
The infrastructure of energy sector--property for energy production, transmission and distribution--forms a very significant part in the economy of every country. The biggest part of property of energy infrastructure companies is special-purpose property: technological lines, devices, equipment, pipelines, cable and overhead power transmission and distribution lines, transformer substations and switchyards, hydro-technical constructions and installations, wind power plant equipment, etc. Property of the energy sector, constructions and equipment, serve for a long period of time--from several to several dozens of years; technological changes are slow, renewal requires extremely large investments and the payback time is long. Therefore, combining operational measures, new technologies function in the common system along with effectively serving property and conservative technologies, which do not save resources and which are often electrotechnical property items created in a non-rational way (Schemer, 1999).
Infrastructure is a limiting element in the energy sector, and it influences the operation of the entire energy system the most. Gradual modernisation of the system, replacement of technologies by more reliable, rational and environmentally-friendly ones, rational property management decisions and suitable accounting of property are the features of a contemporary company of energy infrastructure. Implementing these measures, it is also equally important to establish suitable depreciation norms that would enable to accumulate funds for property renewal. The property of energy infrastructure wears technologically the most rapidly, while the period of physical operation of a property item may be much longer. Amortisation deductions of a property item are accounted as internal costs of a company; still, they create positive cash flows. It is also important that the property depreciation would be calculated from the correctly established value of a property item. Depreciation deductions from property that has not been assessed suitably will not result in sufficient funds necessary for the property renewal. Meanwhile, overvalued property will increase the level of company costs, will have negative impact on profitability and other activity indexes. This is why the correct establishment of value of infrastructure property is significant in the property accounting and management processes (Sliogeriene, 2008).
FEED