The Russian Association of Wind Power Industry (RAWI) hosted the ‘Renewable energy in Russia: history, geography, economics, and ecology’ webinar, on November 17, 2020, during which Kirill Degtyarev, PhD in Geography, Researcher of the Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University, gave a lecture.
The moderator of the webinar was Yuri Sergeev, ecologist, senior advisor on energy and electromobility at the Bellona-Murmansk,
During his lecture, Kirill Degtyarev touched upon the following topics:
– USSR & Russia’s renewable energy development timeline
– Renewable energy economy & geography schemes of, modern era geography-specific assessment of its economic efficiency
– Enablers and promising areas for renewable energy in Russia, both in the global and in the regional contexts
– Renewable energy ecology
Kirill Degtyarev told about the fact that historically mankind has been using the energy of the sun, wind, water and bioenergy for centuries and Russia has its timeline of renewable energy though, with utilisation of water and peat as renewable energy sources in Russia’s power stations dating back 1920.
But then, scientists of both imperial and Soviet Russia took a considerable interest in wind energy. The energy potential of the wind, along with grandiose plans for its use, is described in the 1920-30s’ scientific articles.
Further, the development of renewable energy took place in the newly-formed Soviet Union with the construction of hydroelectric power plants, wind energy in the Crimea, and installation of solar panels on the first man-made earth satellites.
In this vein, by the 1950s, 9,000 wind turbines were annually produced in the USSR. During the Virgin Lands Campaign in Kazakhstan, the first multi-unit wind power plant was built, working in conjunction with a diesel engine, and provided 400 kW of total capacity, which foreshadowed modern European wind farms and wind-diesel hybrid systems.
In addition to that, Kirill Degtyarev presented the economy of renewable energy in Russia. The conclusions made were based on the IRENA data.
The average capacity factor (ICUF) of Russia’s solar projects in is higher than those of Germany, and England and is the same as those of France and China.
Meanwhile, the global electricity production based on renewable energy sources (excluding hydropower) increased from 200 to 3000 TWh in raw numbers representing a fifteen-fold growth over two decades (from 2000 to 2019).
Over the past 20 years, global electricity production has grown 1.7 times, from 16,000 to 27,000 TWh. The share of renewable energy (except for hydropower) increased from 1.5to 10%, including Western Europe (about 20%), the USA and China (about 10%), India (about 8%), and the rest of the world (about 4% on average), while Russia’s rate is hardly exceeding one per cent.
Nevertheless, Kirill Degtyarev named the South of Russia, the Caucasus, Primorye, Altai, North, and the Arctic as the most promising regions for the development of sustainable energy. The need for renewable projects buildout in the polar zone is particularly high.
According to him, the growing share of renewable energy in Russia can be facilitated by Russia’s own serious scientific and technological groundwork in renewable energy, as well as domestic production of equipment and the development of renewable energy technologies, which also have export potential to emerging markets.
As for environmental aspects of renewable energy, the expert noted that the monetary equivalent of renewables environmental damage is significantly lower than that of fossil fuels. But there is also a problem which could appear in 10-20 years, namely recycling of those projects that had been put into operation in the last 10 years and by that time would have been decommissioned. In other words, there is a task to solve the issue during the next 10-20 years and not to harm the environment in the process.
Summing up the webinar, the moderator Yuri Sergeev noted, “In my opinion, such initiatives as the RAWI’s RES Academy are essential for renewables in their current form. Despite the global trends, there are still opponents to the development of sustainable energy and for discussions between the parties to be rewarding, we need to have the necessary know-how and keep ourselves up to date. Today’s lecture covered the not so frequently discussed seminal topics of sustainable energy development in this country, as well as naysayers’ hobbyhorse, the environmental friendliness of renewables. If you happen to miss the lecture, be sure to get acquainted with it on tape delay as it was really interesting.”