• Home • About Fund  • Partners • Contact Info • Fund's Programs

News, March 2012

Lake Baikal Region: Second Round CDSP ICT Program Projects are Launched

On April 1, 2012, three projects of this program were commissioned in Ust Barguzin and Tankhoi municipalities in the Republic of Buryatia and in the settlement of Khomutovsky in Irkutsk Oblast. These projects are focused mainly on the priority area of the grant round: energy-efficiency and the introduction of information and communication technologies.

Project teams met with local government officials and the staff of FSD (projects manager Elena Milanova and financial director Olga Mashkova) and FSD East Siberia Regional Center (director Vladimir Belogolovov and manager V. Gustomesova). The participants in the meeting discussed issues facing communities and explored possible ways and means of resolving them; noted the interest of the local public in the projects; and considered the possibility of cost sharing projects by local organizations.

Postgrant training for project implementers in Ust Barguzin. The discussion of program project goals was joined by project coordinator Leonid Linkhoyev, expert in gas-producers and boilers and energy-efficiency Yuri Khadanov and FSD East Siberia Regional Center director Vladimir Belogolovov	Elena Milanova and Olga Mashkova moderate postgrant training for project implementers in Khomutovo attended by Alexei Ivanenko, deputy head of the municipal administration, head of the library and head of the sports complex, financial director Zoya Khalyaeva, and a representative of the utilities service
Postgrant training for project implementers in Tankhoi is attended by Marina Petrachkova, press-secretary of the reserve, Vitally Yudin, technical specialist, and Natalia Gerkina, accountant	Deputy Head of Khomutovsky Municipal Administration for economics and finance Alexei Ivanenko shows the buildings of the local Culture and Sports Complex

The project “Utilization of a cogeneration technique at the boiler plant of the Ust Barguzin branch of Baikal Technical School of Tourism and Energy-Efficiency Technologies” is being fulfilled in the settlement of Ust Barguzin, Republic of Buryatia, located on the northeastern coast of Lake Baikal. The status of a protected UNESCO area and its proximity to major federal protected nature areas requires this community to modernize energy supply systems and shift to alternative energy sources such as timber waste. The project involves modernizing the boiler plant equipment and the heating system in an educational institution attended by 280 students, though its actual capacity is 500 students. It is expected that the prime cost of produced heat will drop by 40%; heat output efficiency will grow after the high-tech combined gas-producer and boiler that burns wood waste are installed; the processes of fuel input and removal of burning waste will be mechanized; and nearly 14% of the total amount of timber waste generated in Ust Barguzin will be utilized. The energy-efficiency technology will be replicated in other organizations in Barguzinsky and Kurumkansky raions with the help of information and communication technologies.

The project in the municipality of Tankhoiskoye is located in the cooperation zone of Baikalsky Biosphere Reserve. Project activities are aimed at accomplishing two objectives: installation of solar batteries at the environmental and tourist center Baikalskaya Bird Tagging Station at the remote forest settlement of Mishikha. This will help save electric energy and successfully develop educational and tourist activities at the Lake Baikal UNESCO World Heritage Site. The second objective is to install wireless internet equipment at the visitor center of the reserve and at the international volunteers’ camp in order to provide the residents and guests of the settlements of Kedrovaya, Vydrinnaya, Dulikha and Mishikha with guaranteed access to web resources. Under the project an educational model site will be set up to demonstrate the benefits of using alterative sources of energy to the residents of 4 settlements located in the cooperation zone of the reserve. Training seminars will be conducted for local residents at which they will learn to use the Internet. Information about the importance of using renewable sources of energy in nature reserves will be placed on the websites of the Baikalsky Biosphere Reserve, the administration of Kabansky raion and in regional sources of information.

The project in Khomutovo community will install an information dispatcher center for recording energy costs that will include an information terminal at a socially significant facility of the settlement – the Culture and Sports Complex. The complex includes a community center, a health and sports center and a library that were recently overhauled by the municipality. An energy audit of these buildings will be conducted under the project and its results will allow modernizing energy systems, installing meters and hooking them up to the dispatcher center.

The installed system of recording and monitoring energy costs will enable social institutions and residents to oversee their utility expenses online. The use of ICT (websites, information seminars, public discussions and publications) will be targeted toward replicating project results in other communities to ensure a steady improvement of life in the community.