Probably, each of us has heard the phrases more than once: Kostromskaya GRES, Zaporozhskaya GRES, Konakovskaya GRES and many, many other names of cities and towns (and even entire states) along with the letters GRES. The decoding of these letters (abbreviations), denoting some kind of phrase, sounds like this: State District Electric Station (GRES). The very first state district power plant in the world, called "Electrotransmission", was built in the suburbs of Moscow in 1912-1914. The Russian engineer R. E. Klasson developed the project and supervised the construction. The power plant operated on local fuel - peat. And had a capacity of 15 MW. It provided electricity to the growing needs of Moscow and the surrounding area.
By the end of the twentieth century, in the term GRES, the decoding lost the “district”, and in the early 2000s the “state” part, because. powerful thermal power plants no longer served the region, but entire administrative regions and even entire independent countries. For example, almost the whole of Estonia is provided with electricity by two powerful state district power plants - Prib altiyskaya (1.654 GW) and Estonian - 1.6 GW. There is one hydroelectric power station in Lithuania (Litovskaya - 1.8 GW)also provides most of the much-needed independent country of electricity. More than 250 thermal power plants (mainly state district power plants and thermal power plants) are operated in the Russian Federation, almost all of them were built during the years of Soviet power. The "public" part of the term has become in many cases private or corporate.
Today, in the term GRES, the decoding of which is practically useless, as has been shown earlier, the words "state district" are replaced, most often, with the term of the functional description "condensation". Namely - "Condensation Electric Station" (CES). The term GRES, the decoding of which has lost its meaning, is used out of inertia of thinking or out of habit.
The number of these power plants - GRES, or, more precisely, IES, includes both Serovskaya in the Yekaterinburg region (in the city of Serov), and Ryazanskaya (in the Ryazan region of the same name, in the village of Novomichurinsk).
Serovskaya GRES was put into operation in 1954 and has a total capacity of 538 MW. In addition, a part of its heat capacity in the amount of 220 Gcal/hour is used for heat supply. The power plant is located near the Sosva River, from which it takes water for its work. Two types of fuel are used: the main one is coal from Kazakhstan (Ekibastuz coal basin), and Russian natural gas (as a reserve fuel).
In 2010, it was decided to modernize Serovskaya GRES - to build a new power unit with a capacity of 419.5 MW. This power unit will be combined cycle, manufactured by Siemens (Germany). Combined-cycle technology will increase the unit's efficiency to 58% or more. The launch of the new part is scheduled for 2014.
Ryazanskaya GRES is a thermal condensing power plant with a design capacity of 3,600 MW. One of the largest thermal power plants in the USSR. It bears its name not by the nearest settlement, but by the regional center. The plant's capacity in Soviet times was 2,650 MW, and for heat supply it provided 180 Gcal/h. In Soviet times, the construction project included four power units of 300 MW each and three of 800 MW each. Four of 300 MW and two of 800 MW were built. The fuel used is Moscow region coal and fuel oil. Its two chimneys are among the world's ultra-high chimneys (their height is 320 m). Later, natural gas was added to the fuel. In recent years, the operating station has been upgraded (a gas turbine unit with an electric generator was installed) and its capacity has increased to 3,200 MW.
