History of the Company

TGC-1 PJSC started its operating activity on October 1, 2005, but the history of TGC-1 begins much earlier, in 1897, when Helios AG, a company from Cologne, launched the first stationary electric power plant in Russia in St. Petersburg, on Novgorodskaya Street. The following year, two more electric power plants were launched in the capital of the Russian Empire: one on Obvodny Canal by Electric Lighting Company 1886, and another on Fontanka river embankment by the Belgian Société Anonyme. Today, these three first-ever electric power plants in our country, which have since been upgraded many times, are combined into TGC-1 Central Cogeneration Plant.

In 1917, electric power plants were nationalized, and the Association of State-Owned Power Plants of Petrograd was formed, which was renamed Lenenergo District Power Office on August 10, 1932.

At that time, the legendary GOELRO plan was put in motion in Leningrad. Today, TCG-1 includes the first hydro power plant built under this plan, Volkhovskaya hydropower plant. The first GOELRO thermal power plant, the Red October cogeneration plant, which is also part of the Company, was decommissioned in 2010 after almost 88 years of service. It was replaced by a new plant, Pravoberezhnaya (Right Bank) cogeneration plant, which generated the first kilowatts and gigacalories in 2006.

GOELRO firsts in Karelia (Kondopozhskaya hydropower plant) and in the Polar Region (Nizhne-Tulomskaya hydropower plant) also remain in operation within the production complex of TGC-1 JSC.

During World War II, Leningrad power engineers conducted a unique operation, that made history as a breach of the Leningrad power blockade. Almost all thermal power plants of the blockaded city were shut down in the first months of the war due to lack of fuel. In 1942, an underwater cable was laid on the bottom of Lake Ladoga to supply the city with electricity, and Volkhovskaya hydropower plant became the main source of electricity for blockaded Leningrad. 

In 2005, as part of Russian power sector reform, TGC-1 PJSC united electric power plants that were previously included in Lenenergo JSC, Kolenergo JSC, and Karelenergo JSC. Thus, today TGC-1 combines generating facilities from the Baltic Sea to the Barents Sea.