Development of “Green” Energy in Russia

Abstract

The article presents the main factors influencing the country’s transition to a “green” energy, as opposed to the energy, the development of which is accompanied by large-scale environmental pollution, as well as the accumulation of a significant amount of production and consumption waste. The results of comparative calculations of the main parameters for traditional and non-traditional power plants for the conditions of Russia are considered. The comparison was made for nuclear power plants, thermal power plants operating on coal and on natural gas; hydroelectric power station; as well as network wind farms and solar power plants – without accumulation. It is shown that a promising direction in the construction of wind and solar power plants, as well as other generating facilities based on RES, is to cover the own energy needs of various enterprises and organizations. The proposed direction of energy development is promising and economically beneficial also due to the fact that biomass in our country is one of the most common types of renewable energy sources. About 48% of the world’s peat reserves and 23–24% of timber are concentrated in Russia, as well as huge amounts of agricultural waste. The article proposes effective technical solutions in the field of energy use of biomass. It is shown that for Russia a promising direction for the modernization of the existing energy supply system is the combined use of various types of renewable energy sources and local bioenergy resources that complement each other and provide guaranteed energy supply to consumers while minimizing the required investments.