*[Enwl-eng] Ministry of Energy opens cards

[ENWLine]

*Ministry of Energy opens cards*

The Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation plans to create the map
showing the potential for development of renewable energy in Russia. Until
now, Russia has remained a "white spot" on the world map of energy
alternatives.

*For more climate and energy related news please visit our website
rusecounion.ru*

The plans for creation of renewable energy sources (RES) map were announced
by Yegor Grinkevych, the deputy director of the Department of Electric
Power Development within the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation.
He said that the Ministry will develop such an instrument in order to "have
understanding of socially accepted approaches to development of generation
based on renewable energy."

Power production based on renewable energy depends to a greater extent than
any other one on geographical and weather conditions. Therefore, mapping of
areas with detailed assessments of the renewable potential in Russia is a
very timely issue. Although the maps of solar and wind energy are widely
available in almost all regions, they do not contain the detailed data
required by government agencies to understand the full potential of the
country's resources, and by private sector enterprises to determine
locations of specific objects.

Oliver Knight, a senior expert of the ESMAP mapping project, says: "The
initiative to create maps for renewable energy plays a highly catalytic
role. Mapping of resources is an important measure to ensure the resources
and confidence in the policy required by commercial developers to expand
investment in renewable energy. In addition, governmental agencies will get
access to better information for negotiation on specific projects, and
donors will have a clearer picture of the needs in the data and generating
capacities, as well as of the potential of renewable energy sources in
client countries."

Representatives of the Ministry of Energy write in the "Renewable Energy"
section of the departmental website: "Until recently, for a variety of
reasons, primarily because of the huge reserves of conventional energy
resources, development of renewable energy sources in the energy policy of
Russia received low attention. In recent years, the situation began to
change noticeably. The need to fight for a better environment, new
opportunities to improve the quality of life, participation in
international development of advanced technologies, the desire to improve
the energy efficiency of economic development, the logic of international
cooperation - these and other considerations have contributed to promotion
of national efforts to create more green energy, to the movement towards a
low carbon economy."

According to the web site of the Ministry of Energy, "the volume of
commercially available renewable energy resources in the Russian Federation
is not less than 24 billion tons of standard fuel. The share of electricity
produced in Russia from renewable sources in 2008 amounted to about 1%
excluding hydropower with capacities over 25 MW, and more than 17% when
including them. The share of the heat energy generated on the basis of
renewable energy sources was about 3%, or about 2,000 million Gcal."

In late May this year, the Russian government approved a package of
documents aimed at development of alternative energy. According to the
innovations, the country shall introduce 6.2 GW of generating capacities
from renewable energy sources until 2020, which will increase the share of
these sources in the energy mix from 0.8% to 2.5%. In addition, Russia
creates the Association of Renewable Energy, which will exist in the form
of a non-commercial partnership. Being established by major players in the
industry, it now passes the state registration and will be set up in Russia
by October.

Mr. Grinkevych tells: "We plan quite a lot of work with experts in the
field of renewable energy to assess the resource and economic potential of
renewable energy in Russia. Frankly, at the moment the Government, the
Ministry of Energy have no sufficiently detailed maps for technical and
economic potential of renewable energy development in the digital form for
all regions."

These plans are encouraging. However, so far, despite the abundance of
renewable energy sources in Russia, only a very small fraction of this
potential is used, and local projects remain few.
--
RSEU Climate Secretariat
www.rusecounion.ru
Address: Voznesenskij 36-4, St.Petersburg, 190068, Russia
Tel: +7 812 2410043
Tel.mob: +7 921 9117986, +7 9217444255
e-mail:rseu.c...@gmail.com

--


From: "Climate Secretariat RSEU" <rseu.c...@gmail.com>
To: <can-...@listi.jpberlin.de>; <rseu_cli...@googlegroups.com>;
<enwl...@enwl.bellona.ru>
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 6:35 PM
Subject: Ministry of Energy opens cards

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