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Russian wind power blows in to energy gap
Published: 10 August, 2009, 11:08
Edited: 03 January, 2010, 19:53
TAGS: Investment, Natural resources, Russia and the global economy, Economy
Renewable energy producers are lining up to invest billions of dollars in wind power projects in Russia, though Russian power generation has long been dominated by hydro-carbons, nuclear and hydro-electric schemes.
Russia’s centralized power systems cover only one third of the country's territory, leaving more than 20 million people without mains electricity supply.
Russia’s South, North West and the Far East are among the areas poorly connected to the power grid, but their coastline offers huge potential for wind power.
Canada's Greta Energy plans to invest up to €250 million in its first wind farm, on Russia's south coast, next year. And the company hopes to make a return on investment in about 7 years with Gennady Ermolenko, Regional Director at Greta Energy, saying Russia has great wind power potential.
“There’s the energy commission, the European energy commission. So they make predictions what to wait from what country. So, for Russian Federation and other Soviet countries, they estimate that we could take up more than 15% of World wind market.”
Russia's RusHydro is the leading domestic developer. Earlier this year it signed a deal with Japanese investors to build a $100 million wind farm off Vladivostok. Gordon Edge, Chairman at the British Wind Energy Association says one of the benefits of wind power is that generation costs are predictable.
“Fuel is for free. So once you set it up, you know exactly what it costs, which is one of the benefits that isn’t recognized very much.”
Russia plans to build enough wind farms to supply 7 Gigawatts of power by 2020, which is sufficient for several regions. According to the state program on use of renewables, green energy should make up 4.5% of the country’s energy balance by then
07.08.2009, 19:58
3 comments
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One of those interviewed in your piece about wind farms made the claim that wind farm energy is free.Things are not as they appear. In fact, the fuel i.e., the wind is free but the cost of converting the energy and delivering the electricity produced is not free. In Britain, in an article I wrote for http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0913/costs-of-going-green-0913.cfm the cost of renewables and especially wind farm technology are made clear. There is not only the cost of developing and operating a wind farm, add to that is the cost of constructing a power line to the national grid. Then you have to add the cost of redesigning and upgrading the national grid to meet the new power that has to be delivered to customers. Then you have to deal with the problem of the realibility and availability of electricity from wind farms. On average wind farms only operate commercially for up to twenty percent of the time. Not much good when you are operating a hospital that needs power twentyfour hours a day. This means you have to add to the cost a power station that can switch on as required. Unfortunately, for the power station owner this means not working at optimal efficiency in terms of cost and polution. If you choose to store the electricity generated, apart from hydropump storage schemes there are no cost effective ways of storing large amounts of energy for a period of time. This means that renewable energy, apart from hydro electric and geothermal schemes is more expensive than traditional technology. It would be more cost effective for Russia to invest heavily in energy efficiency and insulation than waste its money on wind power. At present in Russia their is little economic incentive for users to become more energy efficient.
I was looking for an F-15 fighter plane which I heard flying overhead. The plane had just taken off from a nearby base and was very loud. I never did find it, because they are painted so that they blend into the sky to make it more difficult for an enemy to get a radar lock. Painting all those wind turbines so that they are less visible might be another good idea, since they will eventually be all over the place. Coloring fiberglass resin is easy and cheap. Once they get a reputation as being ugly and obtrusive, it will be a lot harder to build the needed wind farms. It doesn't seem like a very difficult task. No billion dollar scientific effort needed here. Or is there some reason why they need to be white. No pilots should be flying that low with all the powerlines and TV towers. Can Russia make a big breakthrough here. Please. Maybe Washington will fund an expensive 'economic stimulus program' study. Don't laugh, they might.