The Ministry of Energy decided to create an industrial-scale power station in
Pskov Oblast for a number of reasons. Due to the absence of any local generating capacities, the region required supplies of energy produced by the power system of Leningrad (
Saint Petersburg). Additionally, the plant would have created a vast number of workplaces that could have potentially reduced the overall economic backwardness of the
Pskov Oblast and
Dedovichi district in particular. The construction area for the plant was established in 1964 and was approved by the Scientific and Technical council of the State Energetics and Electrification committee of the USSR in 1965. The construction project of the station was developed by Teploproekt Institute in 1967. In 1982 the Ministry of Energy ratified the final version of the Pskov GRES project. It implied the usage of milling peat as the main type of fuel and natural gas as the reserve one. This configuration caused heated objections from the nature protection bodies as the utilisation of peat could lead to pollution and other negative influences on the environment. As a result, natural gas was selected as the main, ecologically clean type of fuel for the station. With the recruitment of A.A. Meshkov and A.A. Uverskiy as the heads of Pskov GRES and the construction department accordingly in 1983, the active phase of the construction began. In 1992 the extension of the main Russian export gas pipeline had been finalized, which allowed the station to receive natural gas and, thus, eliminated the lack of fuel. Subsequently, the first of two energy units of the Pskov power station was activated in August 1993. The second unit was put into action in 1996 leading the station to its target installed electrical capacity of 430 MW. The installation of the energy units was performed by CJSC “Pskovenergomontazh.” In 2013-2014 the installed capacity of Pskov power station had been increased to reach 440 MW: the range on each of the energy units was extended by 5 MW. == Description ==