Rossiyskiye Seti : Rosseti and SoftBank to Boost Sci-Tech Cooperation

Russia's Rosseti Group Head Oleg Budargin held a meeting in Tokyo with Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., to discuss scientific and technical cooperation between Rosseti Group and Japanese companies, the globally recognized leaders in new technologies.

The Russian company is confident that such collaboration will intensify both countries' electrical grids modernization and development by implementing innovative solutions and cutting-edge technologies.

Oleg Budargin noted that Rosseti was very much interested in joint R&D in the sphere of SmartGrid solutions including state-of-the-art metering methods and devices.

«Rosseti has a wide and positive experience of partner relations with colleagues from Japan so I have no doubts that our team-work on prospective SmartGrid technologies will be a runaway success as well as propel the project of the countries' grids integration to the next level», - Budargin said.

Currently Rosseti is underway with its large-scale investment 'SmartGrid construction' project realization. More than 220 thousand smart electricity meters are being installed in three Russian regions. This is a foundation for future 'Smart Cities'.

Rosseti's engineers will also pay close attention to Japan's experience in projects of environmentally-friendly RES given increased level of requirements for automation, safety and reliability of energy systems. Russia is planning to increase production of energy with use of renewable resources by 10 times in the next 20 years.

The parties also discussed the delivery of electrical power from Russia to Asian Pacific countries, including the project of building an energy bridge between Russia and Japan.

Following the meeting, representatives of Rosseti and SoftBank noted that the two companies were ready to start working on the feasibility studies for pooling the energy systems of both countries.