Renewable Energy in Russia. A Still Unexplored Potential

The use of renewable energy is currently very limited in Russia. It accounts for only 3.5 % of the country's primary energy consumption and barely 1 % excluding large hydro. While the Soviet regime encouraged research as early as the 1920's, centralized energy planning policies and the overuse of fossil fuels (Russia is the world's leading oil and gas producer and exporter), put a quick end to this. Renewable energy could, however, meet real needs, by compensating unequal regional access to energy (some devote more than half of their budget to energy), improving supply to isolated areas or, in terms of a sustainable energy policy, to limit fossil fuel consumption. Russia does, in effect, have an extremely vast renewable energy potential (hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, tidal), which could count for nearly 30 % of its primary energy consumption, particularly important for some regions poorly-endowed with energy resources (Kamchatka, for example) where renewable energy use could easily become competitive. However, investments will really only develop if the government initiates a support policy by precisely calculating objectives for renewable energy use and financial aid in the form of subsidies or repurchasing prices