The department responsible for designing power generation facilities for rural electrification, including diesel power plants and small hydropower plants, was founded by Sergey Georgievich Fatyushenko — a war veteran, engineer, and electrical specialist. As the first head and organizer of the commissioning department, he took responsibility for building the team and establishing the professional standards that became the foundation for all future work.
Zambia, Mali, Somalia, Cuba, Greece, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Egypt, and East Germany — dozens of diesel power plants with capacities from 500 kW to 30 MW, built according to our designs, brought energy to developing countries. We became the key specialists providing technical supervision for these construction projects.
We supplied power to Baikonur and Magadan. Power plants designed by us operate reliably in all conditions, from tropical climates to the Far North.
We became the main designer of standby diesel power plants for safety systems at almost all nuclear power plants in the USSR and Eastern Europe: Leningrad, Smolensk, Kursk, Kalinin, Beloyarsk, South Ukraine, Kola, Khmelnytskyi, Novovoronezh, Rostov, and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants, as well as nuclear power plants in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.
In 1983, by resolutions of the USSR State Planning Committee and the USSR State Construction Committee, we were appointed as the lead organization for the design of diesel power plants with a capacity of over 100 kW. This was official recognition of the high quality of our projects.
The collapse of the USSR did not stop our development, and in 1992 leading specialists established JSC Selenergoproekt, preserving the team and the necessary competencies.
Over the years, the institute changed several names — from Giproselkhoz Elektro to Selenergoproekt — and designed diesel and gas turbine power plants around the world: in Somalia, Mongolia, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Kampuchea, Bulgaria, Hungary, Egypt, Peru, Cuba, Iran, Zambia, and Vietnam. When, in the early 1990s, the era of state-run institutes came to an end, our leading specialists — highly experienced engineers — did not want to lose the expertise they had accumulated. In 1992, they established Joint Stock Company Selenergoproekt, also known as JSC SEP. This initiative was led by Sergey Tikhonovich Kuroptev, who became the founder of the new private company.
Under the leadership of S.T. Kuroptev, JSC SEP not only preserved the legacy of the Soviet period established under Fatyushenko, but also became its worthy successor. We carried forward the best of the past — fundamental knowledge, a culture of quality, and responsibility for every facility — and added modern technologies, flexibility, and a client-focused approach.
A new era required new solutions. We became leaders in the design of not only diesel power plants, but also gas turbine power plants and gas engine power plants.
Half a century ago, we were created by the state to serve major strategic goals. Today, we are a team that has consciously chosen the path of development, quality, and responsibility. Power plants built on a turnkey basis according to our designs provide energy for the country’s future and ensure the safety of new national infrastructure facilities.