Russia’s Renewable Energy Industry in Focus at 5th Russian Energy Week

Russian Energy Week 2022 international forum continues in Moscow. Discussions over the future of renewable energy in Russia remain an essential part of the forum's agenda. Challenges faced by the renewable energy industry amidst the ever more intense global competition fuelled by the current geopolitical situation and supply chain disruptions were in the focus of attention at the session entitled ‘Renewable Energy: Gigawatt Plants and Export Potential’.

Among those who took part in the discussion were First Deputy Chair of the State Duma Committee for Energy Valery Seleznyov, the Head of the Department of Electric Power Development (Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation) Andrey Maximov, the Head of Regions unit, IRENA, Binu Partan, NovaWind CEO Grigoriy Nazarov, Director of Russia Renewable Energy Development Association (RREDA) and Partner for Power Sector Practice at Vygon Consulting Alexey Zhikharev and Hevel Group CEO Zoya Sandzhiyeva.

The experts discussed the export potential of Russia’s renewable energy industry, support measures needed to maintain markets for Russian high-tech equipment, and ability of the national renewable industry to compete with major Asian manufacturers.

Over the past 10 years, installed renewable capacity has grown 17-fold worldwide. Some countries such as Germany, France and Spain are working to increase the share of renewables in their energy mix, while others, particularly the USA and China, have put an emphasis on developing engineering and manufacturing competencies. Russia follows the same pathway, having launched a renewable energy promotion programme that sets out enhanced requirements for local sourcing.

As the first stage of the programme is over, the share of local content already reaches 70% to 100%. The price of electricity from new generating facilities has already fallen to global levels. Existing factories are capable of producing nearly 800 MW of renewable energy equipment per year. With more money invested, there will be new plants with a minimum annual output of 1 GW by 2024.

As noted at the forum, the 2022 geopolitical events severely affected the renewable engineering and manufacturing sectors, but the national plans to build up renewable competencies remain intact.

“NovaWind is currently the only company on the Russian wind energy market that offers localized equipment in this segment. Rosatom took on the task of technology transfer and organized the production of key critical components of the wind turbine at its facilities. Despite the current geopolitical situation, the market today is growing at such a pace that the demand for equipment in this sector is very high. And I am sure that we will occupy a certain niche in it,” said Grigory Nazarov, CEO of NovaWind JSC.