What is renewable energy. Renewable energy development prospects in Russia
Renewable energy sources(RES) today is not only a “good business idea” and a source of incessant hype, propaganda and counter-propaganda. I will try to express my position on some of the recurring myths in the field of renewable energy sources.
Statement (S): "The area of the Earth is not enough to meet the needs of civilization with the help of RES"
Answer (O): The Earth receives ~ 190 petawatts of thermal energy from the Sun (this is what reaches the surface), and civilization consumes 500 exajoules of primary energy per year, i.e. The "power" of humanity is 0.015 petawatts, about one ten-thousandth of the incoming energy. There is another elementary estimate based on the development of existing large solar power plants - to provide civilization with primary energy, the area of large deserts is quite enough. The main “but” in this reinforced concrete refutation of the myth is the uneven distribution of a convenient area for renewable energy generation across countries. In general, “uneven distribution” is the main thing that people overlook, generalizing in any way the picture around renewable energy sources, and today this topic will sound like a refrain. Say, Japan is experiencing significant difficulties in finding a place for solar power plants, take a look at this photo selection of Japanese solar power plants and compare with the American ones from the link just above.
A vivid illustration of this thesis, although it refers only to electricity and does not take into account some losses, still gives an idea - the Sahara desert alone, in theory, is enough to provide humanity with energy.
W: “The production of solar panels and wind turbines uses more energy than they can generate in their life cycle (EROEI<1)»
A: This is complete nonsense, as more accurate measurements show. In 2016, this topic was once again raised in the work of Ferroni and Hopkirk 2016, which showed a slightly negative EROEI value for a rooftop solar power plant in Switzerland. However, the work is replete with errors, and the critically adjusted value turns out to be in the region of 8. The EROEI value from 5 to 15 is typical for various attempts to calculate the EROEI of silicon crystalline SB, the scatter of the value is explained both by the difference in conditions in which the SPP is located (between Norway and Saudi Arabia, the difference in the production of the same panel will be about 4 times), and by the difference counting techniques. For other renewable energy sources, for example, wind turbines, even higher EROEI values are visible, from 15 to 50, i.e. here criticism falls completely outside of reality.
It should also be noted that the EROEI indicator itself, although used by scientists, is very imperfect. In its "consumable part" there is an endless series of decreasing indicators that cannot be taken into account, but if you do it correctly (something like accounting for "energy consumption for the construction of houses in which workers lived who built a plant for the production of machines for the production of silicon wafers for solar panels ”), we eventually come to low values of EROEI - and indeed, because all the energy received by civilization is consumed, the EROEI of humanity as a whole is equal to something about 3 (inverse efficiency of heat engines). This figure arises if one realizes that in the real world it is impossible to invest energy in the production of new energy without the entire civilization behind us. As a result, the EROEI values obtained by the calculation depend mainly on the limits of calculating the energy consumption, which are determined by the researchers more or less arbitrarily.
Installed capacity of the world wind energy. The world average ICUF of wind power was 26%.
Installed capacity of photovoltaic batteries. It is useful to remember that the power of photovoltaics is indicated for "standard conditions" (light flux 1000 W / m ^ 2), and the real ICUF turns out to be from 6 to 33%, depending on the region and the availability of solar panel drives.
Wu: "The production of solar panels and batteries is very environmentally friendly, but since they are made mainly in China, they turn a blind eye to this."
A: I have never seen at least some figures confirming this statement, it is understandable - there are dozens of pollutants that it is desirable to express in the form of specific indicators (for example, in the form of "gram / kWh generated during the life of the panel"), also in different options for the production site of panels / batteries.
Of course, there are scientific publications in which this extensive work has been done, but first of all it is worth trying to evaluate some points yourself. By now, silicon polycrystalline panels have almost completely supplanted competing technologies some time ago (silicon-single crystal, amorphous silicon and thin-film CdTe and CIGS panels), although in 2018 they started talking about the return of a silicon single crystal. Polycrystalline silicon SBs use, on average, 2 grams of silicon for every watt of installed power. In 2017, approximately 100 gigawatts of new panels were installed, which corresponds to the production of 200 thousand tons of refined silicon. Against the background of ~ 4 billion tons of cement, 1.5 billion tons of steel, 60 million tons of aluminum or 20 million tons of copper - no production of semiconductor silicon, even especially dirty ones, is able to make its production the leader in the anti-ratings of ecologists, simply due to a gap of thousands times in scale with other basic materials.
For lithium-ion batteries, which were produced in 2017 about 100 GW * h (funny coincidence), the characteristic value is 5 grams per watt * hour, i.e. about 500 thousand tons of materials were used.
There are also more precise calculations that take into account the emissions of metals or CO2 from all the combined capacities involved in the production of solar panels. Taking into account the fact that this work was done more than 10 years ago, it can be considered as an estimate from above, as well as a funny historical milestone for the now dying competitors of polycrystalline silicon.
There is, however, an important caveat here. Modern science prefers to consider an almost fatal "carbon footprint", i.e. in fact, energy costs for production, and not the discharge of toxic organic matter or chromium into rivers, considering that the latter is quite a removable effect with the correct design of treatment facilities. Of course, China is famous for its non-ecological production, and there this point may not be observed. Nevertheless, there are no fundamental obstacles to preventing such a small-scale production from introducing a negative environmental effect.
As a result, it seems to me, a tale about the terrible non-environmental friendliness of the production of solar renewable energy sources and batteries - there is simply a mechanical transfer from the stereotype about the non-environmental friendliness and harmfulness of chemical industries in general. At the same time, the modern organization of such industries is able to ensure the absence of pollution emissions in principle.
The rate of annual growth of various energy technologies in 2014-2017. The incredible take-off of solar energy is now gradually slowing down, but offshore wind power, which is not included in this schedule, is accelerating.
W: "Renewable electricity has become cheaper than nuclear / coal / gas"
A: If the previous myths were hotly discussed mainly in previous years, then today (in 2017-2018) the most discussed is the cost of electricity. It is clear why - while the cost of renewable energy electricity was higher than competitors, the driver of the development of alternative energy was mainly intangible factors - concern for the environment, progressiveness, things that cannot be measured, and in addition, to some extent, the energy independence of countries introducing renewable energy sources. However, as the normalized cost of electricity (LCOE) from different sources converges, a situation arises that the goal of subsidizing RES has been achieved, and further this technology will be introduced on rational grounds.
Graphical display of unsubsidized electricity price statistics from multiple renewable energy projects around the world over time.
However, the reality here is complex and multifaceted. First of all, it should be remembered that the cost of renewable energy in different parts of the planet is radically different. The easiest way to illustrate this is with traditional renewable energy sources - hydroelectric power plants. You can, in principle, dig an artificial river and block its hydroelectric power station in a convenient place, or build high concrete walls along the river to move the hydroelectric station closer to consumers, but it is clear that the price of electricity with such solutions will be completely uncompetitive. It turns out that there are certain points where hydroelectric power plants are much more profitable than in other places.
Similarly, "new" renewable energy sources - there are regions of the world, say, the Arabian Peninsula, the Chilean deserts, the deserts of the southwestern United States - in which a standard panel produces much more (2-4 times) electricity per year than in Germany or Japan.
This means that if LCOE has already dropped to 25 ... 50 dollars per MW * h in SPP projects in these regions, this price cannot be automatically projected to any region.
The costs for the construction of RES power plants are also unevenly distributed. This is defined as the difference in the cost of land, wages and the presence of an industry for the construction of a wind farm or solar power plant with extensive experience.
As a result, the cost of renewable energy for different projects in different parts of the world is scattered 20 times for the sun and about 10 times for the wind.
As a result, the assessment of the cost of RES-electricity can be formulated as follows: in certain territories, the LCOE of RES-electricity has become lower than traditional solutions, and every year, as technologies become cheaper, these territories are becoming larger.
However, the topic of the cost of RES-electricity and, more broadly, the competitiveness of RES, cannot be considered without two more questions: subsidizing RES and their variability as a source of electricity.
W: "RES power plants are entirely subsidized, and in purely market conditions they are not competitive"
A: As we have already discussed above, the competitiveness of RES is almost completely determined by the location of a particular station. Therefore, if, for example, mechanically dividing the volume of subsidies by generation in kilowatt * hours, this will give, at best, a reason for reflection, and not an accurate tool for assessing the “pure” competitiveness of renewable energy sources.
However, it will be useful to understand the extent of the distortion of electricity markets. To do this, it is worth decoupling development and research subsidies from direct support for power generators. The first type of subsidies is not so large-scale and more or less uniform for different energy technologies.
The statistics of subsidies for the development of energy technologies in the OECD countries - it can be seen that 30-40 years ago the atom was the undisputed favorite.
Direct support is also different in form: budget money for the purchase of RES-e / e in China and Great Britain, tax deductions in the USA, a special component of the electricity price distributed among RES generators in Germany, but all of it can be reduced to an easily comparable numerical indicator - cents of subsidies per kilowatt * hour of renewable energy generation.
In 2015, for example, support for the 4 largest "RES countries" looked like this: In China, 4637.9 million dollars were allocated (1184 for the wind and 3453.9 for the sun) for the production of 187.7 TW * h of electricity, on average 2.4 cents per kW * h, in the UK - 4285 million dollars for 40.1 TW * h, an average of 10.7 cents per kW * h, in the USA slightly more than 2 billion dollars of tax credits were issued (exclusively on the Sun ) with the generation of 115.7 TW * h (mainly by wind), i.e. 1.6 cents per kW * h, $ 8,821 million was redistributed in Germany by 96.3 TW * h, i.e. 10.91 cents per kWh.
It should be noted that the richest country among the widely developing renewable energy sources, the United States, spends very little money on direct subsidizing of renewable energy sources, although there are other mechanisms - for example, California has legally established shares of "green" energy, which must be bought out by the networks from generators.
These figures have (unfortunately) a circumstance that complicates understanding. For example, in Germany, support costs are dominated by old projects that have subsidies 5-10 times higher than the arithmetic average and received this right 10 or more years ago (FIT is assigned to a generating facility for 20 years).
In addition, in 2016-2017 there was a significant decrease in the tariffs for subsidizing RES for significant countries, i.e. figures from 2015 are no longer relevant today (in China, support has decreased by 2 times, in Germany they switched to auctions with a Strike price 2-3 times lower than the average FIT of 2015).
However, as in the previous question, the main thing is clear - support varies greatly from country to country. In Europe, price disparities between RES and hydrocarbon energy can reach 100% (one must also take into account the burden of coal generation with taxes on CO2 emissions), however, they are rapidly going down, in China, India we are talking about 10-30% support, in the USA we can talk about market parity (although in the United States it is no longer possible to discard development subsidies - they are more than direct support).
In fact, the situation with subsidies follows the expansion of areas of direct competition for renewable energy sources as sources of electricity - the larger their size, the lower the subsidies.
In the next part, we will discuss the issues of renewable energy variability and its scale, energy storage, storage costs and various alternatives, demand management, trends and prospects for renewable energy in general. To be continued.
The news about records in the use of renewable energy sources has not left the news feeds in the past few years. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in the period 2013-2015, the share of renewable energy sources in new capacities in the electric power industry is already 60%. It is expected that even before 2030 renewables will displace coal to the second place and become the leaders in the electricity generation balance (according to the IEA forecast, a third of electricity volumes by this year will be produced with the help of renewable energy sources). Taking into account the dynamics of the commissioning of new capacities, this figure does not look too fantastic - in 2014 the share of renewables in the world electricity production was 22.6%, and in 2015 - 23.7%.
However, under the general term RES, there are very different energy sources. On the one hand, this is a long and successfully operated large hydropower, and on the other, relatively new types - such as solar energy, wind, geothermal sources and even completely exotic energy of ocean waves. The share of hydropower in electricity generation in the world remains stable - 18.1% in 1990, 16.4% in 2014 and about the same figure in the forecast for 2030. The engine of the rapid growth of RES over the past 25 years has become precisely the "new" types of energy (primarily solar and wind energy) - their share increased from 1.5% in 1990 to 6.3% in 2014 and is expected to catch up with hydropower in 2030 , reaching 16.3%.
Despite such a rapid pace of development of renewable energy sources, there are still quite a few skeptics who doubt the sustainability of this trend. For example, Per Wimmer, a former employee of the investment bank Goldman Sachs, and now the founder and head of his own investment and consulting company Wimmer Financial LLP, believes that renewable energy is a "green bubble", similar to the 2000 dot-com bubble and the 2007 US mortgage crisis. 2008 years. Interestingly, Per Wimmer is a citizen of Denmark, a country that has long been a leader in the wind energy sector (in 2015, Danish wind farms produced 42% of the electricity consumed in the country) and strives to become the "greenest" state, if not in the world, then certainly in Europe. Denmark plans to phase out the use of fossil fuels entirely by 2050.
Wimmer's main argument is that renewable energy is commercially uncompetitive and projects using it are unsustainable in the long term. That is, “green” energy is too expensive compared to traditional energy, and it develops only thanks to government support. A high share of debt financing in renewable energy projects (up to 80%) and its growing cost will lead, according to the expert, either to the bankruptcy of companies implementing projects in the field of "green" energy, or to the need to allocate an increasing amount of state support funds to keep them on I am floating. However, Per Wimmer does not deny that RES should play a role in the energy supply of the planet, but he proposes to provide state support only to those technologies that have a chance to become commercially viable within the next 7-10 years.
Wimmer's doubts are not groundless. Probably one of the most dramatic examples is SunEdison, which filed for bankruptcy in April 2016. Until this moment, SunEdison was one of the fastest growing American companies in the field of renewable energy, the value of which in the summer of 2015 was estimated at $ 10 billion. debt capital.
The turn in investor sentiment came when SunEdison unsuccessfully tried to take over solar rooftop solar company Vivint Solar Inc for $ 2.2 billion, which coincided with a decline in oil prices. As a result, SunEdison's share price fell from a peak of more than $ 33 in 2015 to 34 cents when it filed for bankruptcy. SunEdison's story is a worrying but ambiguous signal to the industry. According to analysts, the company's projects were "good", and the reason for the bankruptcy was too rapid growth and large debts.
However, the performance of the MAC Global Solar Energy Stock Index (an index that tracks the price movements of more than 20 public companies operating in the solar energy sector with headquarters in the US, Europe and Asia) over the past four years is also not encouraging.
The issue of subsidies is also controversial. On the one hand, the volume of state support for renewable energy in the world is growing every year (in 2015, according to the IEA, it approached $ 150 billion, 120 of which were in the electricity sector, excluding hydropower). On the other hand, fossil energy sources are also subsidized by states, and on a much larger scale. In 2015, the volume of such subsidies was estimated by the IEA at $ 325 billion, and in 2014 - at $ 500 billion. At the same time, the efficiency of subsidizing renewable energy technologies is gradually increasing (subsidies in 2015 increased by 6%, and the volume of new installed capacity - by 8%).
The competitiveness of renewable energy sources is also growing, and rapidly, due to the reduction in the cost of electricity production. To compare the cost of various sources of electricity, the LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) indicator is often used, in the calculation of which all costs, both investment and operational, are taken into account in the full life cycle of a power plant of the corresponding type. According to Lazard, which publishes LCOE estimates for various fuels annually, wind has dropped 66% over the past 7 years and sun by 85%.
At the same time, the lower levels of the LCOE estimate range for industrial-scale wind and solar power plants are already comparable or even lower than the values of this parameter for gas and coal. Despite the fact that the LCOE methodology does not allow to take into account all the systemic effects and the need for additional investments (networks, basic reserve capacities, etc.), this means that projects in wind and solar energy are becoming competitive in comparison with traditional fuels and without government support.
Another characteristic of this trend is the rate of decline in prices announced by energy companies at auctions for the purchase of large volumes of electricity through PPA (power purchase agreement). For example, another solar industry record of 2.42 cents per kWh was set by a consortium of Chinese panel maker JinkoSolar and Japanese developer Marubeni in 2016 in the United Arab Emirates. As recently as 2014, the lowest bid on such auctions was above 6 cents per sq / hr.
In conclusion, one should once again recall the key reasons for the rapid development of renewable energy sources in the world. The main factor stimulating the development of renewables is still decarbonization, that is, the adoption of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming. This was the focus of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, adopted on December 12, 2015 and entered into force on November 4, 2016.
Other benefits of switching to renewable energy sources include improving the environmental situation, supplying energy-deficient and remote areas, as well as the development of technologies and the creation of new jobs. Over the past few years, the use of renewable energy sources has stimulated the creation of one of the most high-tech industries in the world. The volume of investments in this industry in 2015 was estimated at US $ 288 billion. 70% of all investments in electricity generation have been made in the renewable energy sector. This sector (excluding hydropower) employs more than 8 million people in the world (for example, in China, their number is 3.5 million).
Today, the development of renewable energy sources should not be viewed in isolation, but as part of a broader Energy Transition process - an “energy transition,” a long-term restructuring of energy systems. This process is characterized by other important changes, many of which enhance green energy, increasing its chances of success. One such change is the development of energy storage technologies. For renewable energy sources that depend on weather conditions and time of day, the appearance of such commercially attractive technologies will obviously be of great help. The global process of development of new energy is irreversible, but a clear answer to the question of its place and role in the Russian fuel and energy complex has yet to be formulated. The main thing now is not to miss the window of opportunity - the stakes in this race are quite high.
Hydroelectricity is the next largest renewable energy source, accounting for 3.3% of global energy consumption and 15.3% of global electricity generation in 2010. In 2010, 16.7% of global energy consumption came from renewable sources. The share of renewable energy is decreasing, but this is at the expense of a decrease in the share of traditional biomass, which was only 8.5% in 2010. The share of modern renewable energy is growing and in 2010 amounted to 8.2%, including 3.3% for hydropower, for heating and water heating (biomass, solar and geothermal water heating and heating) 3.3%; biofuel 0.7%; electricity production (wind, solar, geothermal and biomass in TES) 0.9%. Wind power use is growing at about 30 percent annually, worldwide with an installed capacity of 196,600 megawatts (MW) in 2010, and is widely used in Europe and the United States. The annual production in the photovoltaic industry reached 6,900 MW in 2008. Solar power plants are popular in Germany and Spain. Solar thermal power plants operate in the USA and Spain, and the largest of them is the 354 MW Mojave Desert plant. The world's largest geothermal plant is a geyser plant in California, with a nominal capacity of 750 MW. Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world, related to the production of fuel ethanol from sugar cane. Ethyl alcohol currently covers 18 percent of the country's automotive fuel needs. Fuel ethanol is also widely used in the United States.
Renewable energy examples
Wind energy
This is a branch of energy, specializing in converting the kinetic energy of air masses in the atmosphere into electrical, thermal and any other form of energy for use in the national economy. The transformation takes place with the help of a wind generator (for generating electricity), windmills (for generating mechanical energy) and many other types of units. Wind energy is a consequence of the activity of the sun, therefore it is classified as a renewable energy.
In the future, it is planned to use wind energy not through wind generators, but in a more unconventional way. In the city of Masdar (UAE), it is planned to build a power plant operating on a piezoelectric effect. It will be a forest of polymer trunks covered with piezoelectric plates. These 55-meter barrels will bend in the wind and generate current.
Hydropower
The advantages of PES are environmental friendliness and low cost of energy production. The disadvantages are the high cost of construction and the power that changes during the day, because of which the TPP can work only in a single power system with other types of power plants.
Wave energy
Sunlight energy
This type of energy is based on the conversion of electromagnetic solar radiation into electrical or thermal energy.
SES of indirect action includes:
- Tower- concentrating sunlight with heliostats on a central tower filled with brine.
- Modular- at these SPPs, the coolant, as a rule, oil, is supplied to the receiver at the focus of each parabolic-cylindrical mirror concentrator and then transfers heat to the water evaporating it.
Solar pond diagram:
1 - fresh water layer; 2 - gradient layer;
3 - a layer of steep brine; 4 - heat exchanger.
The largest power plant of this type is located in Israel, with a capacity of 5 MW, a pond area of 250,000 m 2, and a depth of 3 m.
Geothermal energy
Power plants of this type are thermal power plants that use hot water as a heat carrier. Due to the lack of the need for water heating, GeoTPPs are largely more environmentally friendly than TPPs. Geothermal power plants are being built in volcanic regions, where, at relatively shallow depths, water overheats above the boiling point and seeps to the surface, sometimes appearing in the form of geysers. Access to underground sources is carried out by drilling wells.
Bioenergy
This energy sector specializes in the production of energy from biofuels. It is used in the production of both electrical energy and heat.
First generation biofuels
- Algae are simple living organisms adapted to grow and reproduce in polluted or salt water (they contain up to two hundred times more oil than sources of the first generation, such as soybeans);
- Ryzhik (plant) - growing in rotation with wheat and other grain crops;
- Jatropha curcas or Jatropha - growing in arid soils, with an oil content of 27 to 40%, depending on the species.
Of the second generation biofuels on the market, the best known are BioOil from the Canadian company Dynamotive and SunDiesel from the German company CHOREN Industries GmbH.
According to estimates of the German Energy Agency (Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH) (with existing technologies), the production of fuels by biomass pyrolysis can cover 20% of Germany's needs for automobile fuel. By 2030, with advances in technology, biomass pyrolysis could provide 35% of Germany's automotive fuel consumption. The production cost will be less than € 0.80 per liter of fuel.
The Pyrolysis Network (PyNe) was created - a research organization uniting researchers from 15 countries in Europe, the USA and Canada.
The use of liquid pyrolysis products of coniferous wood is also very promising. For example, a mixture of 70% gum turpentine, 25% methanol and 5% acetone, that is, fractions of dry distillation of resinous pine wood, can be successfully used as a replacement for A-80 gasoline. Moreover, for distillation, wood waste is used: branches, stumps, bark. The output of fuel fractions reaches 100 kilograms per ton of waste.
Third generation biofuels- fuels obtained from algae.
The use of continuous processes is contrasted with the extraction of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas or peat. In a broad sense, they are also renewable, but not by human standards, since their formation takes hundreds of millions of years, and their use is much faster.
Renewable energy support measures
At the moment, there are a fairly large number of measures to support renewable energy sources. Some of them have already proven to be effective and understandable for market participants. Among such measures, it is worth considering in more detail:
- Green certificates;
- Reimbursement of the cost of technological connection;
- Connection tariffs;
- Pure metering system;
Green certificates
Green certificates are understood as certificates confirming the generation of a certain amount of electricity based on renewable energy sources. These certificates are obtained only by manufacturers qualified by the relevant authority. As a rule, a green certificate confirms the generation of 1 MWh, although this value may be different. The green certificate can be sold either with the electricity generated or separately, providing additional support to the electricity producer. Special software and hardware tools (WREGIS, M-RETS, NEPOOL GIS) are used to track the issue and ownership of "green certificates". In accordance with some programs, certificates can be accumulated (for later use in the future), or borrowed (to fulfill obligations in the current year). The driving force behind the mechanism for the circulation of green certificates is the need for companies to fulfill the obligations assumed by themselves or imposed by the government. In foreign literature, "green certificates" are also known as: Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), Green tags, Renewable Energy Credits.
Reimbursement of the cost of technological connection
To increase the investment attractiveness of projects based on renewable energy sources, state bodies may provide for a mechanism for partial or full compensation of the cost of technological connection of generators based on renewable sources to the grid. Today, only in China, the grid organizations fully assume all the costs of technological connection.
Fixed tariffs for renewable energy
The experience accumulated in the world allows us to speak of fixed tariffs as the most successful measures to stimulate the development of renewable energy sources. These RES support measures are based on three main factors:
- network connection guarantee;
- long-term contract for the purchase of all generated RES electricity;
- guaranteed purchase of generated electricity at a fixed price.
Fixed tariffs for RES energy may differ not only for different renewable energy sources, but also depending on the installed RES capacity. One of the options for the support system based on fixed tariffs is the use of a fixed mark-up to the market price of RES energy. As a rule, a surcharge to the price of generated electricity or a fixed tariff is paid for a sufficiently long period (10-20 years), thereby guaranteeing a return on investment in the project and making a profit.
Pure metering system
This support measure provides for the possibility of measuring the electricity supplied to the network and the further use of this value in mutual settlements with the power supply organization. In accordance with the “net metering system”, the RES owner receives a retail loan for an amount equal to or greater than the generated electricity. By law, in many countries, utilities are required to provide consumers with a clean metering option.
Investments
Globally, in 2008, they invested $ 51.8 billion in wind energy, $ 33.5 billion in solar energy and $ 16.9 billion in biofuels. In 2008, European countries invested $ 50 billion in alternative energy, American countries - $ 30 billion, China - $ 15.6 billion, India - $ 4.1 billion.
In 2009, investments in renewable energy around the world amounted to $ 160 billion, and in 2010 - $ 211 billion. In 2010, $ 94.7 billion was invested in wind energy, $ 26.1 billion in solar energy and $ 11 billion in energy production technologies. from biomass and garbage.
see also
Notes (edit)
Links
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The risks of technological lagging behind developed countries, environmental issues and the enormous potential for the use of renewable energy technologies stimulate the Russian government to take the first steps to create a renewable energy industry in Russia, while the rest of the world is already on the path of sustainable growth of the new industry.
The first attempt to create a regulatory framework for the development of RES in the Russian Federation was made in 1999, but then the corresponding law was rejected due to the political and economic crisis. Only 8 years later, in 2007, amendments to the Federal Law “On the Electricity Industry” were adopted, where, as one of the measures to support renewable energy, it was proposed to pay price premiums to the equilibrium price of electricity in the wholesale electricity and capacity market (WECM).
But this mechanism never worked in practice due to the legal and technical difficulties of implementation and the possible impact on prices for consumers. Subsequently, it was replaced by the mechanism of contracts for the provision of capacity for generating facilities of renewable energy sources (CSA RES), with the help of which renewable energy facilities receive a monthly fixed payment for the installed capacity, which is significantly different from the support schemes used in most countries of the world.
The creation of this mechanism became possible due to the peculiarities of the Russian market, where, along with the generated electricity, the installed capacity of power plants is also paid for. In addition, the Russian government, using this feature, controls the volume of RES capacity, and also sets a medium-term price indicator for the marginal capital costs and the minimum permissible level of the installed capacity utilization factor (ICUF) of power plants, which minimizes the impact on the electricity price for consumers. In fact, it took 14 long years to create a support system, during which more than 60% of the renewable energy facilities operating today were built in the world. While we were preparing the documents, a whole renewable energy industry was formed in the world.
In 2013, a mechanism was adopted to stimulate the use of renewable energy sources in the wholesale electricity market, and the target for the share of renewable energy sources in the electric power industry was set at 2.5% by 2024. Although against the background of the achievements and global dynamics of RES development, Russia's plans look more than modest, nevertheless, the start of the introduction of renewable energy in our country was given, but with a very serious delay and a significant difference from the target indicators of foreign countries in terms of the share of RES in the energy balance in the average and long term.
The initiatives taken were the first stage in the introduction and development of renewable energy in our country. But these measures of state support are more complicated than world counterparts and are no longer sufficient for a large-scale introduction of renewable energy sources: localization requirements are high, and the capacities offered for tenders are several times lower than in other countries.
The idea of localization itself is not unique - it is a standard requirement of many national programs to support renewable energy sources, however, in Brazil and Turkey, for example, it is proposed to introduce localization to develop large markets. If the total volume of renewable energy projects in Russia is proposed to be brought to the level of 5.5 GW, then in Brazil and Turkey only in wind power projects investors can build at least 15 GW and 20 GW, respectively.
Of course, for large vendors with large volumes, the cost of localization is less tangible and expedient due to economies of scale. The creation of localization industries requires large start-up investments, which will have to be distributed over a relatively small volume of products, which directly affects the growth of the cost of Russian wind turbines. Even here, with large market players with the volume of commissioning renewable energy facilities up to 10 GW / year, we look at the development of the market differently.
A rather strict requirement in Russia to ensure the level of localization of produced renewable energy equipment, according to market participants, is a serious barrier. For example, for wind power generation, this indicator increases in steps from 25% in 2016 to already 65% in 2019 (Figure 2). In fact, for the renewable energy market in Russia, which is microscopically small in terms of volumes compared to other countries, global vendors who own the technologies, as well as Russian technology partners, must develop a full-fledged industry for the production of components for generating renewable energy plants as soon as possible.
Considering the difficulties in achieving the target degree of equipment localization, investors also assume significant risks in the event of failure to meet such a condition: significant penalty coefficients are applied to the calculated value of the capacity payment (for wind farms - 0.45, for solar power plants - 0.35) ... This significantly worsens the economics of projects and practically leads to the loss of investors' funds. Nevertheless, with all the difficulties in implementing the program, a step towards the development of renewable energy in our country has been made, which is much better than just standing still.
The specifics of Russian reality forces internal and external investors to take on unreasonably high risks of the development of renewable energy sources in our country. This can serve as an incentive to finance projects in other countries with a stable support strategy using well-proven mechanisms around the world. In order not to miss the opportunity that opens up for Russia to form a completely new renewable energy industry with clear prospects and huge potential, it is necessary to constantly keep a finger on the pulse of the market.
On the part of the authorities, it is necessary to improve the support system, taking into account the experience of other countries and the views of the main players, to create business mechanisms to support renewable energy sources and form a stable self-regulatory dynamically developing system, where the market itself will set the pace for the introduction of renewable energy in Russia without a special need to overcome regulatory and procedural barriers ...
A huge impact on the economy of renewable energy projects in Russia is exerted by the fact that the existing technical regulation makes it impossible to predict the timing of the approval of project documentation, the implementation of design solutions, which leads to a significant, unjustified rise in the cost of projects for the construction of new types of generation, in particular wind power plants.
One of the key problems is that in accordance with the current regulations for wind turbines, which are of a very high structure (turbine tower - not less than 80-90 m, as well as a blade with a length of 50-60 m), requirements are imposed on both high-rise buildings and structures (such as Moscow City skyscrapers or chimneys). As a result of this approach, a typical project of a wind farm (as it actually happens abroad) turns into an object that requires a separate detailed consideration, with the presentation of irrelevant requirements to ensure the stability of structural elements borrowed from high-rise construction. This leads to the fact that the foundations of Russian wind farms will cost the investor 1.5-2 times more than in Europe, due to the need for redesign and cost overruns of materials, and it may take 2-3 additional months to pass approvals.
A detail characteristic of the Russian power industry - 100% redundancy in case of main line repairs gives almost a twofold overestimation of the cost of power delivery solutions in comparison with European projects. But RES, by virtue of their specificity, in principle, cannot guarantee constant production of electricity - that is, wind is, then no. In case of repair situations, it would be easier to temporarily suspend the station than to build another expensive power line.
Since the wind farm, according to the current standards, is an industrial enterprise, then according to the building standards for the design of roads on the territory of the enterprise, roads should be built that correspond to the quality of public roads - wide, asphalted, with an embankment and drainage ditches, and drainage pipes, signs and road markings ... And this is for those roads that will actually be loaded only at the time of the construction of the wind farm. During the operation period, only a couple of passenger cars with wind farm personnel will drive on them. Therefore, in the practice of building foreign wind farms, gravel and even dirt roads are used if they have the necessary bearing capacity. Which is several times cheaper than asphalt, and does not at all affect the safety of the operation of wind farms.
The prospect of large-scale construction of renewable energy projects in the Russian Federation requires Russian specialized agencies to revise the existing regulatory and legal acts related to the construction and operation of facilities in order to bring them in line with accepted international practices and standards in order to eliminate excessive requirements and unjustified overstatement of the cost of construction of facilities RES.
In such a small by world standards market of the Russian Federation, renewable energy in the medium term will not have time to reach the levels of cost competitiveness with traditional types of generation, parity in LCOE (parity of the normalized cost of electricity).
According to experts, this will happen in the period 2025-2030, that is, the corresponding market incentives for the introduction of renewable energy in the Russian Federation will be formed only after the end of the CSA RES program - after 2024. Renewing support measures is a vital decision for the industry.
Renewable energy needs a long-term signal that this direction in our country will continue to develop beyond the horizon of 2024. But a simple calculation shows that already at the initial stage - at the level of program documents regulating the energy policy of Russia, there is an obvious discrepancy in the goals and objectives of the development of renewable energy sources.
According to the Energy Strategy, 8.5 GW of renewable energy generating facilities should appear in the Russian Federation by 2035, of which 5.5 GW will already be commissioned by 2024. Thus, the rate of commissioning of new facilities (3 GW for the period 2024-2035) after the end of the program will decrease. This means that the capacities created under the CSA program with the potential to produce up to 800 MW / year of renewable energy facilities (500 MW / year of wind, 300 MW / year of solar power plants) and capable of providing at least 10 GW of growth of renewable energy in Russia in the period 2024-2035 years will not be fully loaded or will be idle.
This is completely unacceptable for the renewable energy market, which will develop at an outstripping pace in the coming decades. It is necessary not only to maintain, but also to increase the dynamics of the introduction of renewable energy sources in the Russian Federation beyond the horizon of 2024. We cannot stand aside from the ongoing transformation of the global energy sector, driven by renewable energy sources. We cannot afford to ignore the next trend in the development of the world energy, as happened with the shale revolution, which has reformatted the global energy markets. When the developed countries have already passed the first stage and entered a different trajectory of development, we are still at the stage of making a decision: whether there should be a large-scale introduction of renewable energy sources in Russia or not.
But even at the initial stage of development of renewable energy, the Russian Federation has the necessary scientific, technical and industrial potential for almost all renewable energy technologies. We have something to offer the world: new designs, modern materials, power electronics, control systems, software, construction technologies and so on, we can be competitive in these areas. Russia can and should be integrated into the global value chain in the renewable energy sector, be a part of it.
The experience of countries such as Spain, India, China and others shows that the transfer of advanced renewable energy technologies will serve as a catalyst for the further intensive development of the RES industry, which has a large multiplier effect: creating new high-tech jobs, reducing pollutant emissions, saving on energy consumption, stimulating demand for domestic engineering products and services for the construction of generating facilities.
By developing renewable energy sources, we are simultaneously creating two new high-tech industries in Russia: the production of equipment and mechanical engineering for renewable energy, as well as the construction and operation of such facilities. The only right decision in this case would be to cast aside all doubts and create a large-scale and promising renewable energy industry, develop and develop competencies in this area, integrate into global production chains and be one of the main players in the global renewable energy market.
Source: http://zvt.abok.ru/articles/148/Alternativnaya_energetika_Rossii,
One of the main trends in the modern world is an active shift in energy consumption, which is growing every day, towards the use of alternative energy sources.
Positive changes have also been outlined in Russia. Thus, a turning point in the Russian history of alternative energy can be called the entry into force of a government decree aimed at stimulating the use of renewable energy sources in the wholesale electricity and capacity market.
Green energy, using the inexhaustible "reserves" of energy from the sun, wind, rivers, geothermal energy and thermal energy of constantly renewable biomass *, has today become the subject of discussion at all important political meetings and forums.
* The article is devoted to only three RES sectors: solar, wind energy and small hydropower. The bioenergy sector is very extensive and deserves a separate topic for consideration.
Every year, green energy provides an increasing part of the energy needs of the world's leading economies. In fact, today there is a building of a new paradigm of world energy, which presupposes the determining contribution of renewable energy sources (RES) to total energy consumption and the gradual displacement of traditional fossil energy resources. According to the energy strategy adopted by the EU, by 2020 the Commonwealth member states must ensure a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, an increase of up to 20% in the share of renewable energy and a 20% increase in energy efficiency. In the longer term, many countries go much further. In particular, Germany plans to achieve by 2050 a 60% share of RES in the country's total energy balance and 80% in electricity production.
Wind, solar energy and biofuel production are the fastest growing branches of the modern industry, on the development of which the entire scientific and technical potential of the leading countries of the world has been thrown. Under these conditions, the discussion about the economic feasibility of the active development of renewable energy sources in the Russian Federation is transformed into an awareness of the political inevitability of moving towards alternative energy. A stake only on hydrocarbon fuels threatens the country with the prospect of a significant technological lag behind the world's leading states in the energy sector, which is basic for the economy, and, as a consequence, the loss of Russia's leading position in the global economy. That is why in recent years, despite the full provision of Russia with traditional energy resources, there has been a positive turning point in the attitude of the Russian state and business to alternative types of energy.
Renewable energy legislation and support. Russia's special way
It is no secret that due to the high cost of renewable energy sources, their rapid development in the leading countries of the world in the last decade has become possible only thanks to financial support from states. Currently, in world practice, there are several mechanisms for supporting power generation projects based on renewable energy sources. The most popular of them are two: green tariffs and green certificates. In the first case, the state guarantees the purchase of electricity from renewable energy sources from producers at special, higher tariffs. They are installed for a specific facility on alternative energy sources for 20-25 years, which ensures a good profitability of such projects. In the second case, the producer, upon the sale of electricity generated from renewable energy sources on the free market, receives a special confirmation certificate (a similar scheme is in effect, for example, in Sweden and Norway), which can subsequently be sold. The state ensures the demand for such certificates by introducing legal requirements for the share of renewable energy sources in the country's energy sector, including incentives for companies using renewable energy sources and fines for “dirty” companies.
GREEN CERTIFICATES IN SWEDEN |
System of green certificates for electricity introduced into Sweden in 2003 year, replaced the earlier system of grants and subsidies. The main goal of green certificates is to increase electricity production from renewable energy sources by 20 TWh by 2020 compared to the 2002 level. The system supports companies using renewable energy sources: hydroelectric power plants and electricity producers that generate it from wind energy, when burning biofuels and peat. The system is based on following principles:
You can track the dynamics of changes in the cost of certificates, for example, on the website of one of the brokers operating in the green certificate market. It is worth noting that in the end, the end user - all Swedish citizens - pays for the support of renewable energy producers. According to experts, the share of green certificates in the cost of electricity for end users is about 3%. Benefits of green certificates:
Green certificates have worked well in Sweden, which has become an example for other countries in Europe. The UK, Italy, Poland and Belgium have introduced similar schemes to support electricity generation from renewable energy sources. Norway has completely repeated the Swedish system, which made it possible to unite the green certificates market of these countries. |
Both mechanisms stimulate the final producers of green energy, while ensuring a high market demand for equipment for renewable energy sources and, accordingly, the competitive development of the enterprises producing it. All this guarantees the attraction of new technologies to the industry and the struggle of manufacturers for a low cost.
As a result, the active growth of alternative energy in past years, the effects of scaling and technological improvement of production in the industry led to a significant reduction in the cost of renewable energy sources and the achievement of grid parity in an increasing number of regions of the world (the state of parity in the cost of energy obtained from conventional and alternative sources). Nevertheless, government assistance is still required to stimulate the start of the development of renewable energy industries in new markets, especially in countries that do not have an urgent need for energy resources.
Over the past years, Russia has been looking for its own way to support renewable energy sources, the need for which is due to the specific features of the domestic energy market. A distinctive feature of the Russian electric power market is the scheme of RAO UES of Russia, which implies the simultaneous functioning of two mechanisms of electricity trading: the sale of electricity itself (its physically generated volumes) and the sale of capacity. The sale of capacity is carried out through capacity supply agreements (CDA), which, on the one hand, stipulate the obligation of the electricity supplier to keep in readiness the generating equipment for generating electricity of the established quality in the amount necessary to meet the consumer's electricity demand, and on the other hand, a guarantee payment of power by the consumer.
After vain attempts to stimulate the development of renewable energy sources in Russia through surcharges to the market price of electricity, on May 28, 2013, the Government of the Russian Federation adopted Resolution No. 449 “On the Mechanism for Incentivizing the Use of Renewable Energy Sources in the Wholesale Electricity and Power Market”. The developers of this decree tried to ensure maximum integration of the mechanism for supporting renewable energy sources into the specific architecture of the electricity market existing in the country. Renewable energy support (provided for three types: solar, wind energy and small hydropower) is carried out through the RES CDA - agreements on the provision of capacity, modified taking into account the peculiarities of RES. The changes made to the standard CDA ensure the operation of renewable energy facilities according to rules similar to those that apply to power generation facilities operating in a forced mode.
There are contradictions in the very fact of using the PDA mechanism (which, in fact, is a trade in guarantees) to sell an unstable alternative energy, depending on the vagaries of the weather.
Attempts to implement this mechanism reveal a lot of problems today. Local network operators do not always correctly understand the specifics of the new legislation, which leads to an unreasonable requirement for the owners of generating facilities to provide a guarantee of the supply of the required capacity.
It takes time for all participants in the renewable energy market to adapt to new conditions. Explanations of legislators to local operators, development of additional by-laws will be required.
According to the current legislation, RES in Russia will be maintained within the framework of annual quotas (target parameters) allocated for each type of RES for the period up to 2020 (Table 1). The selection of investment projects for the construction of generating facilities based on renewable energy sources is carried out at specialized competitions, where the maximum levels of capital costs are set. The main condition for obtaining maximum financial assistance from the state is the requirement of localization, i.e. ensuring the production of a part of the equipment for the project within the country. This requirement not only reflects the state's desire to stimulate the use of alternative energy, but also defines it as a priority task for the development of the industry as a whole, with the involvement of the enormous scientific and technological potential of the Russian economy.
TABLE. 1. TARGET PARAMETERS OF COMMISSIONING NEW CAPACITIES ON THE BASIS OF RES, MW | ||||||||
Objects | Year of commissioning of facilities | |||||||
2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total | |
100 | 250 | 250 | 500 | 750 | 750 | 1 000 | 3 600 | |
120 | 140 | 200 | 250 | 270 | 270 | 270 | 1 520 | |
18 | 26 | 124 | 124 | 141 | 159 | 159 | 751 | |
Total | 238 | 416 | 574 | 874 | 1161 | 1179 | 1429 | 5871 |
The legislation provides for strict localization requirements (Table 2). All facilities in each renewable energy sector that have received government support must be at least 50% based on Russian equipment.
TABLE. 2. TARGET PARAMETERS OF LOCALIZATION OF GENERATING FACILITIES ON THE BASIS OF RES | ||
Objects | Commissioning year | Target index of the degree of localization,% |
Generating facilities operating on the basis of wind energy | 2014 | 35 |
2015 | 55 | |
2016 to 2020 | 65 | |
Generating facilities operating on the basis of photoelectric conversion of solar energy | 2014 to 2015 | 50 |
2016 to 2017 | 70 | |
Generating facilities with an installed capacity of less than 25 MW, operating on the basis of water energy | 2014 to 2015 | 20 |
2016 to 2017 | 45 | |
2018 to 2020 | 65 |
Softer conditions - for small hydroelectric power plants (SHPP). In 2014–2015, the requirement for 20% localization is in force, but this is more of a virtual option, since taking into account the specifics of the sector, the first objects will appear no earlier than 2016–2017, when the requirement for 45% localization comes into effect.
The first competition for the selection of renewable energy projects for 2014-2017 was held from August to September 2013. Its results are largely assessed by experts as disastrous. The main reason is that there was too little time allocated to the participants to prepare for the competition, which was held just three months after the adoption of the relevant decree. Many companies simply did not have time to fulfill all the conditions for submitting applications in time.
The current state of renewable energy in Russia
Renewable energy is making its first steps in Russia. In fact, the only area of alternative energy in the country that has achieved significant results in recent years is the biofuel industry, in particular the production of wood pellets. Russia is the leading supplier of these products to European markets.
In the production of electricity based on renewable energy sources, only hydropower has achieved significant development, which accounts for up to 16% of the country's energy balance. However, here, too, green power plants, that is, minimally affecting the ecosystem of small hydroelectric power plants (with a capacity of up to 30 MW), constitute an insignificant part, while most of them were built in Soviet times. The solar and wind power sectors are now practically at zero (starting) level.
Small hydropower
Small hydroelectric power plants (according to international standards - hydroelectric power plants with a capacity of up to 25-30 MW) were the most important source of electricity for the national economy of the USSR in the first half of the last century. In the 1950s, the USSR had about 6,500 SHPPs (most in Russia) with a total capacity of more than 320 MW, which generated a quarter of the electricity consumed in rural areas. The subsequent centralization of energy supply led to an almost complete rejection of small hydropower.
In the new millennium, small hydro power plants are gaining popularity in the Russian Federation again, and the development of this industry is proceeding in two possible ways: the restoration of obsolete abandoned small hydro power plants and the construction of new ones. The energy potential of Russian small rivers is of interest from the point of view of replacing imported energy resources in remote rural regions of the country.
Today, the small hydropower industry in Russia, after a long period of neglect, is only making its first steps, as evidenced by the competition for the selection of RES investment projects that took place last year. In the SHPP sector, the competition was unsuccessful, since no projects were submitted for it. The reasons are in the uncertainty of the procedures for power certification and confirmation of the degree of equipment localization. An important role in the failure of the competition was also played by the specifics of small hydropower and the lack of time for the preparation of documents. The aforementioned decree should provide a legislative framework for enhancing the development of the small hydropower industry in Russia in the near future.
Now in Russia there are about 300 SHPPs with a total capacity of about 1,300 MW. The main player on the SHPP market is JSC RusHydro, which unites more than 70 renewable energy facilities. The organization has developed programs for the construction of small hydroelectric power plants, involving the construction of 384 stations with a total capacity of 2.1 GW. In the next few years in Russia, we can expect the commissioning of new capacities in small hydropower in the amount of 50-60 MW of installed capacity annually.
Wind power
Over the past decade, wind energy has consistently held the world leadership among new renewable energy technologies. By the end of 2013, the total installed capacity of wind power plants (WPPs) in the world exceeded 320 GW.
RICE. 1. HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORLD MARKET OF WIND ENERGY. GROWTH IN THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PLANTS IN 1997–2012, MW (ACCORDING TO WWEA)
Russia, thanks to its vast territory covering several climatic zones, has the largest wind power generation potential in the world (estimated at 260 billion kWh of electricity per year, which is about 30% of the current electricity production by all power plants in the country).
It should be noted that most of the richest regions in Russia are areas remote from the country's main power generating facilities. These include Kamchatka, Magadan Oblast, Chukotka, Sakhalin, Yakutia, Buryatia, Taimyr, etc. There are basically no fossil energy resources of their own, and the remoteness from main power transmission lines and transport energy oil and gas pipelines makes it economically unjustified to connect regions to centralized energy supply ... In fact, the only permanent source of electricity in remote areas of Russia is diesel generators running on expensive imported fuel. The electricity produced with their help has an extremely high prime cost (20–40 rubles per 1 kWh). In such regions, the construction of wind farms as the main source of power supply is economically profitable even without any financial support from the state.
Despite the unconditional economic feasibility of using wind power plants in many remote regions of the country, the development of wind power (on the scale of general power generation) is currently at almost zero level. There are just over 10 wind farms operating in the country, with a total installed capacity of only 16.8 MW. All of these are obsolete wind farms that use low-power wind turbines. For comparison, we note that in neighboring Ukraine, which today does not have a shortage of electricity, the total installed capacity of wind farms has reached 400 MW, with 80% of the capacity installed over the past two years.
Wind farms are often built in the coastal strip of seas and oceans, where
the wind is constantly blowing
The largest wind farm in Russia is currently the Kulikovskaya (Zelenogradskaya) wind farm, owned by Yantarenergo. It was built in the Kaliningrad region from 1998 to 2002. The power plant with a total capacity of 5.1 MW consists of 21 wind generators, of which 20 units with a capacity of 225 kW each were received in the form of a grant from the Danish government from SEAS Energi Service A. S. Before installation at the Kulikovskaya wind farm, the wind turbines served for about eight years in a Danish wind farm Neysomhead Wind Farm.
In the first competition for investment projects for the construction of RES-based power generation facilities in the wind energy segment, only one company took part - Complex Industriya LLC, which submitted only seven equal projects with an installed capacity of 15 MW each. The total planned capital expenditures of the company for the implementation of all projects are about 6.8 billion rubles. The average planned cost of an installation of 1 kW of the installed capacity of a wind farm is 64,918.3 rubles. All projects of the company passed both rounds without changes and were selected for implementation.
No projects are planned for 2014-2015. Only one project (Aksaraiskaya wind farm in the Astrakhan region) is planned to be commissioned in 2016. The remaining six projects will be commissioned in 2017. In total, two projects will be implemented in the Astrakhan and Orenburg regions and three projects in the Ulyanovsk region.
The industry participants today are simply not ready for such a quick implementation of large-scale wind farm projects, including because of the need to meet the requirements of localization of production.
Solar energy
Solar energy ranks first in the world among all types of renewable energy sources in terms of popularity and development dynamics.
RICE. 2. HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORLD PHOTOVOLTAICS MARKET. GROWTH IN THE TOTAL NUMBER OF INSTALLATIONS IN 2000–2012, MW (ACCORDING TO EPIA DATA)
In Russia, this energy sector is the least developed among alternative energy sources. The country has no more than 3 MW of total installed capacities of solar power plants (SPP), and these are mainly power generating systems with a unit capacity ranging from units to tens of kilowatts. Over 90% of all installations are accounted for by small and medium-sized businesses, less than 10% - by private households. In many cases, such systems provide autonomous power supply to objects remote from the central power grid and work in conjunction with diesel generators.
The largest operating solar energy facilities in Russia as of September 2013 were two power plants of approximately the same capacity (100 kW). The first industrial-scale grid-type solar power plant in Russia was commissioned in October 2010 near the Krapivenskiye Dvory farm in the Yakovlevsky district of the Belgorod region by AltEnergo. At the beginning of June 2013, the first autonomous diesel-solar power plant in Russia with a capacity of 100 kW (installed solar modules capacity - 60 kW) was also put into operation in the village of Yaylyu, Turochak region of the Altai Republic. Thin-film photovoltaic modules of tandem type for SES are developed on the basis of a ‑ Si / µk-Si films. The equipment was produced in Russia at the Hevel plant in Novocheboksarsk (a joint venture between the Renova group and JSC Rusnano).
In December 2013, the first stage of the largest in Russia SPP "Caspian" was launched in Dagestan. So far, 1 MW of capacity has been commissioned, but in the spring of 2014 the power plant will be brought up to the planned capacity of 5 MW. The project is being implemented by the Dagestan branch of JSC RusHydro, the construction is being carried out by MEK-Engineering. The launch of this power plant can be considered a starting point in the development of large megawatt-class SPPs in Russia. In 2014, it is planned to complete two more SPP projects in Dagestan with a total capacity of 45 MW.
Solar energy is the only renewable energy sector in Russia in which the competition for the selection of investment projects in 2013 took place in full. The number of applications submitted for 289 MW exceeded the quotas allocated for the "solar" sector for 2014-2017 (according to the target parameters, this figure is 710 MW). A total of 58 applications were submitted for a total capacity of 999.2 MW. At the same time, for 2014 the volume of submitted applications exceeded the target values of the volumes of installed capacity commissioning by 29%; for 2015 - by 75%; for 2016 - by 59.5%; for 2017 - by 12%.
Based on the results of the competition, projects of five companies with a total capacity of 399 MW were selected (Fig. 3). However, the quota of projects indicated in the target parameters is not filled, despite the wide choice. As in the wind energy and small hydropower sectors, the underfilled target quota for 2014 is being burned out.
RICE. 3. DIAGRAM OF DISTRIBUTION OF PASSED PROJECT SELECTION BY COMPANY
Summing up, we can say that the RES industries in Russia remain "mothballed", although there is a positive shift and state guarantees, backed up by law. Nevertheless, already in 2014, the first large projects for the construction of solar power plants with a total capacity of slightly more than 35 MW will be implemented. Renewable energy market participants still have a long way to go, but the general outlines of this industry are already looming in optimistic tones.
Literature
- The Federal Government's Energy Concept of 2010 and the Transformation of the Energy System of 2011 // Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. 2011. Oct.
- Renewable Electricity with Green Certificates // Ministry of Sustainable Development. 2006. May.
- Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of May 28, 2013 No. 449 "On the mechanism for stimulating the use of renewable energy sources in the wholesale electricity and capacity market."
- Annual Report of World Wind Energy Association. 2012.
- Global Market Outlook for Photovoltaics 2013–2017. European Photovoltaic Industry Association.
- Renewable Energy Sources Market in Russia - 2013: Information and Analytical Report by IBCentre.
Note: The above article was written in 2014. In the current year, 2015, the Ministry of Energy of Russia has developed a strategy for the energy development of Russia until 2035, which we talked about in one of the articles previously published on the website. However, the new strategy does not bring significant changes in the development of alternative energy in comparison with the situation described in the article by Viktor Andrienko. It seems that our country still hopes that its energy needs will be met mainly by fossil fuels.