Teploenergo — the largest heat-supply organization in Nizhny Novgorod: 114 boiler plants, 144 central heating substations, and heat networks with a total length of over 1,700 kilometers, supplying heat and hot water to more than 8,300 buildings across the city[1]. The company traces its origins to the Central Upper-Town Boiler Plant, commissioned in Gorky in 1967[2]; in 1992 it was registered as a municipal enterprise of the city of Nizhny Novgorod[4], and on 22 December 2006 it was reorganized as a joint-stock company whose sole shareholder remains the city itself[1][5]. On 1 October 2025, Nizhny Novgorod Vodokanal was merged into Teploenergo, and on 12 November of the same year the company was renamed JSC Obyedinennyy Kommunalnyy Operator (JSC OKO)[14][16]; the Teploenergo signage and website in Nizhny Novgorod remained in place until autumn 2026[17].
Infrastructure
Teploenergo accounts for more than 53 percent of the volume of heat and hot water supply services in Nizhny Novgorod[1][16]. The company's boiler plants heat all city districts except Avtozavodsky, part of Leninsky, and part of Nizhegorodsky: that is 5,800 apartment buildings and more than 650 social institutions[1].
The largest in-house source is the Nagornaya Heat Distribution Center, which supplies heat and hot water to more than 2,200 buildings in Sovetsky and Nizhegorodsky Districts[1]. The total length of pipes within the company's zone of responsibility is approximately 1,700 kilometers — the equivalent of driving from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow and back twice[12].
Outside the city, Teploenergo operates in Chkalovsk, where heat is supplied by a single automated boiler plant with remote monitoring, and in Arzamas, where there are five boiler plants[12].
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Boiler plants | 114[1] |
| Central heat distribution stations | 144[1] |
| Heat networks | over 1,700 km[1] |
| Share of the city's heat and hot water market | more than 53%[1] |
| Heated facilities | more than 8,300, including 5,800 apartment buildings[1] |
| Capacity of the Nagorny heat plant | 700 Gcal/h (before 2026 — 650)[1][13] |
| Authorized capital | 1,447,906,682 rubles[5] |
| Revenue for 2025 | approximately 18 billion rubles[5] |
| Shareholder | the urban district of the city of Nizhny Novgorod[1] |
How Nizhny Novgorod Switched to Central Heating
Centralized heat came to the city along with large-scale industry. In 1931, the Avtozavodskaya heat and power plant began operating, supplying electric and thermal energy to the automobile factory then under construction; in 1939, the Igumnovskaya combined heat and power plant came online to serve the chemical enterprises of Dzerzhinsk; in 1956, the Novogorkovskaya CHP plant opened near Kstovo; and in 1975, the Sormovskaya CHP plant began supplying heat and electricity to the Sormovsky, Moskovsky, and Kanavinsky districts of Gorky[2].
The upper part of the city fell outside this scheme: there were no industrial heat and power plants here, and the neighborhoods were heated by numerous small boiler houses. The turning point came in 1967.
This gave the Upper Town a single heat source, and the city a utility called "Teplovye Seti" (Heat Networks), which remained part of the district energy authority "Gorenergo" — the predecessor of Nizhnovenergo — until the mid-1980s[2].
In 1967, the Central Upper-Town Boiler House was commissioned in the city of Gorky, marking the beginning of centralized heat supply to the Upper Town and the creation of the Teplovye Seti Gorenergo utility
The Nuclear Heating That Never Was
In March 1979, a resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers ordered the construction of two prototype nuclear district-heating stations — in Gorky and Voronezh[3]. The site for the Gorky Nuclear District-Heating Station was chosen near the village of Fedyakovo and the Royka railway station in Kstovsky District; construction began in 1982. The station was designed with two AST-500 units, each with a thermal output of 500 MW; each unit would have supplied 430 Gcal/h of hot water at temperatures of up to 150 degrees Celsius, and transit heat pipelines to the city would have stretched approximately 30 kilometers[3].
After the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, a movement against the construction project arose in Gorky: from the mid-1988 onward, rallies were held and demands for a referendum were made. An international IAEA expert review in 1989, conducted at the public's insistence, did not change the situation: in August 1990 the Regional Soviet of People's Deputies passed a resolution "On the Termination of GAST Construction," and on 29 November 1990 the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR issued Directive No. 1345-R[3]. By an order of the regional administration head Boris Nemtsov dated 5 December 1991, the state enterprise "Nizhny Novgorod Production and Energy Complex" was created in place of the directorate of the station under construction; the heat networks from the station were subsequently almost entirely dismantled, and the premises began to be leased out[3]. The buildings near Fedyakovo remain abandoned to this day[26].
For the city's district heating, this meant that the Upper Town was left permanently dependent on boiler houses — with the very infrastructure that Teploenergo operates.
It was planned that GAST would supply thermal energy to the Upper Town of the City of Gorky. Upon the commissioning of GAST, it was intended to close around 300 low-efficiency boiler houses of various capacities in the Upper Town of the city
To this day, the heat supply of the Upper Town, which accounts for half of Nizhny Novgorod, is provided by one large boiler house with a thermal capacity of approximately 700 Gcal/h, two boiler houses of 150 Gcal/h each (which were planned to be switched to peak-load mode upon GAST commissioning), and numerous smaller boiler houses
From Gorenergo to a Municipal Enterprise
In 1986, when the Mari portion was separated from the Gorky energy system, the heat networks together with the Central Upper-Town Boiler House were transferred to the municipal ownership of the City of Gorky and reorganized into the enterprise Teploenergo[2]. This is how the name appeared under which the organization would operate for nearly forty years.
On 24 November 1992, the municipal enterprise of the City of Nizhny Novgorod "Teploenergo" was registered, with its address at 14 Bulvar Mira — an address the company retains to this day[4][5]. On 21 October 2002, by an order of Mayor Vadim Bulavinov, Evgeniy Rogachev was appointed to head the enterprise[6].
On 22 December 2006, the municipal enterprise ceased to exist by being converted into a joint-stock company[4]. JSC Teploenergo was registered on the same day; all shares remained with the urban district[1][5].
Money, energy services, and contractors
In January 2012, Yevgeniy Rogachyov, who had led the enterprise for nearly ten years, submitted his resignation, and on 29 February the company was headed by Vladimir Kolushov — a graduate of the Sorbonne and the Higher School of Economics who had previously worked at RAO UES of Russia and had chaired the boards of directors of energy sales companies[6]. In those same weeks, deputies of the City Duma were debating whether to return Teploenergo and the water utility to the form of municipal enterprises: the board of directors elected in 2011 had, according to the deputies, never once convened[6].
In 2013–2014, 29 municipal boiler houses were reconstructed at their own expense by the energy service companies Kompleksnyye Energeticheskiye Resheniya and GPB-Energoeffekt — the investment exceeded 6 billion rubles, and Teploenergo was repaying it under the terms of the contracts. When the boiler house equipment was transferred into municipal ownership by orders of the head of the administration before the payments were complete, the companies went to court[7].
On 17 March 2016, city duma deputy Aleksandr Kotelnikov was appointed general director[7].
Kotelnikov assessed the company's debts at 5 billion rubles against an annual turnover of 10 billion — "at the upper limit" — suspended an investment program worth 1.2 billion rubles, and ordered the revival of an in-house construction and repair division, believing the enterprise capable of carrying out up to 60 percent of pipe-relaying work with its own resources[7].
On 17 August 2018, Kotelnikov left the post; he was succeeded by Ilya Khalturin — an energy sector specialist who had worked in the industry since 2004, starting as a driver-patrol operator in the boiler-turbine shop of the Dzerzhinsk CHP plant and going on to work at the Sormovskaya and Novogorkovskaya CHP plants[8].
The company is good, the technical team is solid and well-trained, the equipment is in "four out of five" condition, and a great deal has been done in terms of procuring new equipment over the past three years
Pipes, wear, and the concession
The chief concern of a heat supply organization is its pipes. Over five years, from 2018 to 2023, Teploenergo replaced more than 500 kilometers of heat networks, averaging 92.7 kilometers per year; the share of dilapidated networks and the number of failures on them fell by a quarter[10].
In 2021, the company entered into a concession agreement for the district heating network of Chkalovsk and built a modular boiler plant there; from 2022 onward it was among the first in the country to receive preferential federal funding from the Territory Development Fund — these funds were used to begin replacing trunk pipelines at Meschera Lake[10].
The Nizhny Novgorod City Duma approved the transfer of the city's district heating networks into a concession in 2022, and on 28 June 2023 city administration head Shalabayev Yuri signed a decree on concluding the concession agreement with JSC Teploenergo. The agreement is designed for 25 years and involves investments of more than 40 billion rubles; the asset depreciation level, assessed at 63 percent, is to fall to no higher than 50 percent by the end of the term[11][10].
The second phase of the Neymark IT Campus on Gagarin Avenue will also require heat supply, so such facilities take priority in the concession[12]. The company also works with students: master's students from the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering are taken on tours of its facilities — for example, the Nizhny Novgorod Aeration Station, which came to the company along with the water utility[27].
| Obligation | Scope |
|---|---|
| Agreement term | 25 years, until 2047–2048[11][12] |
| Investment | over 40 billion rubles[11] |
| New boiler plants | 13[12] |
| Boiler plant reconstructions | 60[12] |
| Decommissioning | 19 obsolete, inefficient facilities[12] |
| Asset wear level | to be reduced from 63% to no more than 50%[11] |
The transition to a concession does not provide for tariff increases beyond those recommended by the RST
Nagornaya Heat Plant
The largest boiler plant in Nizhny Novgorod, heating around 250,000 residents of the Upper Town[13]. In 2026, under a co-financing project with the Territorial Development Fund, reconstruction of two boilers was completed there: new automated domestically manufactured boilers No. 7 and No. 8 were installed, and boiler No. 2 underwent a major overhaul. Total capacity increased by 40 Gcal/h, bringing the plant's overall capacity to 700 Gcal/h; the work was carried out without halting the production cycle[13][25].
The new boilers, according to General Director Dmitry Sivokhin, are 20 percent more powerful than the previous ones while consuming the same amount of resources[13].
Last winter the new boilers were already running in commissioning mode, and we are entering this heating season with the equipment at full load. Our NTC has already completed its scheduled maintenance, as have most of the company's other boiler plants
Ground Collapse on Pushkina Street
In February 2025, the pipe wall of a district heating network was damaged near building No. 11A on Pushkina Street in the Sovetsky District of Nizhny Novgorod. Hot water eroded and caused the ground to subside beneath an unlit pedestrian path, and three local residents fell one after another into the resulting pit, sustaining extensive burns[22][24]. The most seriously injured was a 57-year-old woman — burns covering around 30 percent of her body and burn shock; all three were hospitalized at the PIMU burn center[22].
On September 22, 2026, a court found three employees of Teploenergo guilty of providing services that failed to meet safety requirements: the investigation established that they had not carried out timely inspections of the heat network infrastructure and equipment[24][23]. Section foreman Evgeniy Kurnikov received a two-year suspended sentence with a two-year probationary period, while heating network maintenance technicians Aleksandr Kuvaldin and Evgeniy Koshcheyev each received one year and six months suspended with a two-year probationary period[22]. For more details, see the article Verdict against Teploenergo employees in the case of the heat main rupture on Pushkina Street (2026).
The case against the former director general
Ilya Khalturin had led Teploenergo since August 2018[8]. In July 2024 he was detained on suspicion of abuse of authority, and on September 2, 2024, his powers as director general were terminated by a decision of the sole shareholder[9]. In July 2025, a fourth episode was added to the original three charges, and Khalturin was detained again[20][19].
According to the prosecution's account, he influenced the allocation of contracts: during the modernization of the Upper Town heat plant, a contract was awarded to a different design organization than the one specified in the project; an agreement for network relaying with a sole supplier was approved despite the company director having an unexpunged criminal record, and penalties for late delivery were not collected; a further episode involves a salary increase for the head of a subsidiary, TER-NN[20]. The prosecution links these decisions to a desire to retain a position paying 180,000 rubles per month with an annual bonus of up to 30 monthly salaries[19].
The defendant and his defense do not admit guilt: in court, Khalturin stated that the charges were unfounded, and attributed delays on the projects to the workload of the state expert review body, work carried out by gas and road services, and a shortage of contractors under sanctions[19][20]. On August 7, 2026, the defense filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case for lack of corpus delicti — a document of approximately 200 pages covering all four episodes; the court decided to consider it in deliberation when delivering its verdict[20][21]. This motion is the subject of a separate article: Khalturin defense motion to dismiss the criminal case (2026).
Leadership
The sole shareholder — the city of Nizhny Novgorod[9] — appoints and dismisses the general director.
| Head | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Evgeniy Semyonovich Rogachyov | October 2002 — January 2012 | appointed by order of Mayor Vadim Bulavinov; headed both the municipal enterprise and the first joint-stock company[6][4] |
| Vladimir Nikolaevich Kolushov | February 2012 — 2016 | graduate of the Sorbonne and Vysshaya Shkola of Economics; previously worked at RAO "UES of Russia"[6] |
| Aleksandr Olegovich Kotelnikov | March 2016 — August 2018 | city duma deputy; dealt with debts and energy service contracts[7][8] |
| Ilya Vyacheslavovich Khalturin | August 2018 — September 2024 | power engineer; the 2023 concession was concluded under his tenure; named in a criminal case[8][19] |
| Dmitriy Gennadyevich Sivokhin | from September 2024 | former First Deputy Head of the Administration of Nizhny Novgorod[9][5] |
Merger with the Water Utility and a New Name
The convergence of Nizhny Novgorod's two main utility companies began in April 2023, when an agreement was signed transferring to Teploenergo the powers of the sole executive body of Nizhny Novgorod Vodokanal[14]. The reorganization by way of merger was completed on October 1, 2025: all rights and obligations of the water utility passed to Teploenergo through universal succession, and the combined company retained its previous registration details[14][15].
The new name was entered in the legal entities register on November 12, 2025: joint-stock company Obyedinenny Kommunalny Operator ("United Communal Operator"), abbreviated as OKO[16]. The combined enterprise accounts for 53 percent of the city's heating and hot water supply load and virtually all of its water supply and wastewater disposal load[16][14].
The Teploenergo name faded out gradually: payment details were updated immediately after the merger[15], and on September 15, 2026, the shared website oko-nn.ru went live. The former addresses teploenergo-nn.ru and vodokanal-nn.ru were announced as active until the end of October 2026, after which they are to redirect to the new site[17].
According to the legal entities register, the company's authorized capital stands at 1,447,906,682 rubles, its revenue for 2025 was approximately 18 billion rubles, and as of August 5, 2026, the company is once again listed as undergoing reorganization in the form of other legal entities being merged into it[5].
Heating Season
The heating season in Nizhny Novgorod began on September 21, 2026: under city administration decree No. 7477 of September 16, all 328 municipal heat-generating sources were switched to winter mode, with heat supplied first to children's and medical facilities, then to residential buildings and other structures[18]. Ahead of the season's start, the company connected 38 social-sector facilities ahead of schedule — among them wings of the cardiac center, a sanatorium in Zelenyy Town, 21 kindergartens, and 8 schools[18]. The summer trial heat-ups and the course of the season itself are described separately: 2026–2027 Heating Season in Nizhny Novgorod.
During the inter-heating season, 1,037 units of primary and auxiliary equipment were repaired at boiler houses and central heat distribution points, and at the start of the season the on-duty roster was increased to 25 emergency repair crews from the service and district heating network divisions daily[18].
The district heating system in our city is like the human circulatory system — it is a many-kilometers-long network that needs to be properly balanced
Sources
- teploenergo-nn.ru — Teploenergo JSC — information disclosure (archive)
- energetik-nn.ru — Energetik Training Center (archive)
- rosteplo.ru — History of the creation of nuclear heat supply plants in large cities: the Gorky AST (nuclear heat supply plant) — the project, the 1982 construction, the halt of work, and the fate of the site (archive)
- rusprofile.ru — extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities — Municipal Enterprise of the City of Nizhny Novgorod "Teploenergo": registered 24.11.1992, terminated 22.12.2006 by transformation
- rusprofile.ru — extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities — United Utility Operator JSC (formerly Teploenergo JSC): registered 22.12.2006, authorized capital, executives, predecessors, revenue (archive)
- NIA Nizhny Novgorod — Vladimir Kolushov appointed general director of Teploenergo OJSC (February 29, 2012)
- Kommersant (Volga Region) — Kommersant (Nizhny Novgorod) — "A good company, but heavily indebted": the head of Teploenergo reviews his predecessor's policy (No. 58, April 6, 2016) (archive)
- nta-nn.ru — NTA-Privolzhye — Teploenergo JSC general director Alexander Kotelnikov has left his post, replaced by Ilya Khalturin (August 17, 2018) (archive)
- nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye — Dmitry Sivokhin appointed general director of Nizhny Novgorod's Teploenergo JSC (September 2, 2024) (archive)
- GIPERNN — Teploenergo has reduced the share of dilapidated networks in Nizhny Novgorod by 25% over five years (August 16, 2023) (archive)
- Nizhny Seychas — Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod signed a resolution on a concession with Teploenergo JSC (June 28, 2023)
- Nizhny Seychas — Teploenergo intends to open 13 new boiler houses in Nizhny Novgorod by 2048: interview with Dmitry Sivokhin (December 11, 2024)
- Vremya N — Nizhny Novgorod's Upper Town heating plant updated for the 2026/27 heating season (August 4, 2026) (archive)
- nn.aif.ru — Argumenty i Fakty — Nizhny Novgorod — OKO merged Nizhny Novgorod's Teploenergo and water utility: reorganization completed on October 1, 2025 (archive)
- vodokanal-nn.ru — Nizhegorodsky Vodokanal JSC — Details of United Utility Operator JSC: universal succession from October 1, 2025 (October 7, 2025)
- Govorit Nizhny — Nizhny Novgorod's Teploenergo renamed "OKO": entry in the register of legal entities dated November 12, 2025
- teploenergo-nn.ru — Teploenergo JSC — press center — New website of United Utility Operator JSC, oko-nn.ru, is up and running (September 15, 2026)
- teploenergo-nn.ru — Teploenergo JSC — press center — Yuri Shalabaev: "The 2026–2027 heating season has started in Nizhny Novgorod" (September 21, 2026)
- NN.RU — Teploenergo general director Ilya Khalturin: the criminal case, why he was detained, and what is known (November 11, 2025) (archive)
- NIA Nizhny Novgorod — Defense of former Teploenergo head Khalturin asks to drop the criminal case (August 7, 2026) (archive)
- Pro Gorod Nizhny Novgorod — ProGorod Nizhny Novgorod — Lawyers of the former Teploenergo head ask the court to close the case for lack of corpus delicti (August 8, 2026) (archive)
- Newsroom24 — Court sentences three Teploenergo JSC employees in the case of the pipeline rupture on Pushkina Street (September 22, 2026)
- NN.RU — Verdict in the case of the heating main rupture on Pushkina Street in Nizhny Novgorod (September 22, 2026)
- Vremya N — Verdict handed down against those responsible for the ground collapse on Pushkinskaya Street in Nizhny Novgorod (September 22, 2026)
- Pro Gorod Nizhny Novgorod — ProGorod Nizhny Novgorod — Modernization completed and capacity increased at the Upper Town heating plant in Nizhny Novgorod (August 4, 2026) (archive)
- autotravel-nn.ru — "Attractions of Nizhny Novgorod Region" — Gorky Nuclear Heat Supply Plant: the abandoned site near Fedyakovo, photographs from 2024 (archive)
- teploenergo-nn.ru — Teploenergo JSC — press center — NNGASU master's students visited the Nizhny Novgorod Aeration Station (September 22, 2026)