Report with Analytical Study of Renewable Energy Development in Countries That Have Nuclear Energy and Where Restrictive Measures Were Introduced

for Support of Renewable Energy Sources Development (Quotas and Other Retrospective Measures) and Different Variants of Forecast of Further

Renewable Energy Development in the Republic of Belarus on the Basis of Foreign Experience.

Gatillo Sergei Pavlovich

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

1. Analysis of global trends in renewable energy sources development. 4

2. Analysis of the results of wind energy development 13

3. Used of renewable energy sources in the energy balance of the European Union countries 26

4. Ratio of the capacity of plants that use nuclear energy and wind energy by different countries. Swedish example 28

5. The practice of promotion and regulation of RES utilisation in the EU countries 49

6. The course of development of the wind power as a part of RES in Belarus 57

CONCLUSION 60

REFERENCES, SOURCES 61

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INTRODUCTION

This report is made in accordance with the Terms of reference (Assignment 1.1.2 GRP 2015) of the UNDP/GEF Project “Removing Barriers to Wind Power Development in the Republic of Belarus”, which implies providing support in removing barriers for practical implementation of wind power projects in the Republic of Belarus. The project task is creation and use at these wind power plants of such a mechanism that, at a later stage, will become a model and open opportunities for future development of wind power plants by private development companies. This report contains analysis of wind energy development in the EU countries, including in the countries where nuclear energy is developed, renewable energy sources are available and various RES development support measures were introduced.

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1. Analysis of global trends in renewable energy sources development.

This project is aimed at removing barriers to wind power development as one of types of renewable energy sources (RES) in the Republic of Belarus

Energy is required to satisfy essential human needs and maintenance of production processes. In order to ensure that development is sustainable, power supply must be reliable and not result in negative ecological consequences. Sustainable social and economic development requires guaranteed and real access to energy sources. And guaranteeing of access may require application of different strategies at different stages of the country’s economic development.

RES may play a certain special role both in sustainable energy supply and in mitigation of the impact on climate change. It is necessary to consider what is the current contribution and potential of water energy for electric power generation both in our country and in other European countries. In doing so it is necessary to assess available technologies, benefits, barriers that obstruct development, as well as to consider alternatives of future scenarios and technical policy variants and other possible approaches.

A recent comprehensive analysis of worldwide WM development demonstrated (Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation. Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2012. – 1088 p.) that fast growth rates of RES use were observed in recent years. This being said, it may be noted that a key condition for increase of the RES share in the energy structure was the policy aimed at stimulating changes in the energy system. State policy, decrease of the cost of many RES technologies, changes in the fossil fuel prices and other factors contributed to continuous expansion of the RES use. Although the RES share is still relatively insignificant, it began growing at increasingly fast rates in recent years. Even in 2009, despite global financial problems, the RES potential continued fast growth, including wind energy (32%, increase by 38 GW); hydroelectric power (3%, increase by 31 GW; photovoltaic cells connected to electrical supply network (53%, increase by 7.5 GW); geothermal energy (4%, increase by 0.4 GW) and solar energy for water heating / heating (21%, increase by 31 GW). A biofuel share accounted for 2% of the global demand for road transport fuel in 2008 and about 3% in 2009. By the end of 2009 annual ethanol production increased to 1.6 EJ (76 billion litres), and biodiesel fuel production increased to 0.6 EJ (17 billion litres). Out of approximately 300 GW of the new potential for electric power generation that was added globally in the period from 2008 to 2009, about 140 GW was the share of added RES.

Total global potential for electrical power generation by renewable energy sources in developing countries amounted to 53%, with China leaving behind all counties in terms of increasing RES potential in 2009. In 2009 shares of the US and Brazil in global bioethanol production amounted to 54 and 35% respectively, with China taking the leading position in terms of using solar energy for water heating. At the end of 2009, use of RES in the water heating / heating systems included modern biomass (270 GW), solar energy (180 GW) and geothermal energy (60 GW). There was also an increase in the use of RES (with the exception of traditional biomass) for meeting energy needs in rural areas, including small hydroelectric power plants, various modern biomass variants, as well as domestic or rural photovoltaic panel systems, wind or hybrid systems combined multiple technologies.

It must be taken into consideration that some RES technologies are primarily suitable for decentralised use in rural or urban setting, and others are primarily suitable within large (centralized) power networks. Many RES technologies are technically perfect and used on a wide scale, while other technologies are at an earlier stage of technical excellence and commercial use.

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Research shows that the technical potential for RES significantly exceeds the available and forecast global demand for energy, but the problem is that it is necessary to take control of a significant part of this potential in a cost effective and environmentally friendly way.

For this reason it is forecasted that the available technical potential of renewable energy sources should not and will not limit continuous market growth not in the least in any way. Technical potential of solar energy is greatest among renewable energy sources, but at the same time all types of RES have a significant technical potential.

Table 1. Range of global technical potential assessments

Type of energy

Geothermal energy

Hydroenergy

Ocean energy

Wind energy

Geothermal energy

Biomass

Direct solar

energy

Max.

in EJ/year

1109 52 331 580 312 500 49837

Min.

in EJ/year

118 50 7 85 10 50 1575

Electricity

Global demand in 2008 - 61 EJ/year

H

Global demand in

2008 – 164 EJ/year

Primary energy

When RES are used, there should be a possibility to integrate them in all types of electric power systems – from large interconnected power networks to small autonomous buildings. Whether it is electricity, heating, cooling, gaseous or liquid fuels – RES integration depends on these conditions, specific place and has a complex nature. However, partially schedulable wind and solar energy may be integrated with greater difficulty as compared with fully schedulable hydroelectric power, bioenergy and geothermal energy. For this reason, due to ever wider use of RES with partially schedulable electric power, maintenance of the system reliability becomes more problematic and expensive. It is therefore necessary to accumulate a portfolio of solutions for minimisation of risks and costs related to RES integration. It may include development of additional flexible generation, enhancement and expansion of infrastructure networks and interconnections, electric power demand that may react in conformity with available supply, energy storage technologies (including hydroelectric power generation on the basis of water-storage reservoirs) and modified institutional mechanisms, including regulatory and market mechanisms.

If reduction of energy needs at the expense of increase of energy efficiency is considered as a variant of problem solution, this certainly will be an important means for reduction of the primary energy demand. Measures to ensure efficiency are often the cheapest variant for reduction of the energy demand at the end-use stage. But energy saving due to measures to ensure energy efficiency is not always fully implemented in practice. A measure to ensure energy efficiency, which is successful for reduction of the energy demand within the scope of economy as a whole, also reduces the energy price, which, in turn, results in energy cost cutting within the scope of economy as a whole and additional cost saving (lower energy prices and lower volume of energy use). It is supposed that useful effect may be greater in developing countries and low-income consumers.

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As concerns climate change, the main problem in connection to any useful effect is its impact on CO2 emissions. On account of the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, as well as apparently very promising start of the Paris Agreement, we must try to get maximum benefits for power supply of the country, for its energy security, and for this purpose use all tools that are available and will be offered.

As it was mentioned above, RES resource theoretically may cover all energy needs for a long period in the future, but levelised cost of energy for many RES technologies is currently higher as compared with the existing energy prices, though RES are already economically competitive in many applications. Current levelised energy cost ranges for individual commercially available RES technologies are wide and depend on a number of factors, including, but not limited to characteristics and scale of the technologies, regional variations of cost and operating characteristics and different discount rates.

The cost of most RES technologies has decreased, and expected additional technical achievements will result in further cost reduction. Such decreases in cost, as well as monetisation of the external cost of power supply will increase relative RES competitiveness.

RES contribution into primary energy supply significantly varies depending on the country and region. Geographic distribution of the industrial production, use and export of renewable energy is currently diversified from developed countries into other developing regions, especially Asia, including China. China is currently a global leader in performances of created renewable energy capacities, followed by the US, Germany, Spain and India. It is very important that RES are characterised by a more uniform distribution as compared with fossil fuels and there are countries and regions that are rich of specific renewable energy resources. It must be taken into consideration, when solving the issue of priorities for RES development in Belarus.

Main energy issue in the world and our country are ensuring safe energy supply, granting universal access to energy services and limitation of the impact of energy sector on climate changes. Developing countries need energy to stimulate production, receive income and ensure social development, as well as to reduce the number of serious health issues caused by use of low-quality fuel. In the industrialised countries, the primary reasons to encourage RES comprise emission reduction for the purpose of mitigation of climate change effects, issues of safe energy supply and creation of jobs. RES may open opportunities for solving these numerous large-scale issues.

Although these opportunities seem significant, there are barrier and issues that slow down adoption of RES in contemporary economic circulation.

Barriers are defined as “any obstacle to achievement of the goal, adaptation potential or mitigation potential that may be overcome or reduced by means of policy, programme or measure”.

Various barriers to RES use may be classified as market regulation failures or economic barriers, barriers to information and awareness, social and cultural barriers, as well as institutional and political barriers. In this context, the barrier may have any relation to a specific technology, in particular, to wind power.

Market regulation failures are often explained by external influence. This is caused by human activity, when parties that conduct business, being responsible for this activity, do not take into due consideration the influence of results of this activity on other parties.

Another market failure is appropriation of profits by monopolistic actors of business and economic activity. In case of RES application these market failures may become apparent in the form of insufficient investments in creation and adoption of technical innovations, underestimation of ecological consequences and risks posed by energy use, as well as emergence of structures (one seller or one buyer) that have monopoly in energy markets.

Other economic barriers include prepaid investment expenses and financial risks, in this case financial risks sometimes arise as a result of immaturity of technology.

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Barrier to information and awareness include lack of knowledge about natural resources that is often explained by specifics of a particular place (for example, local wind conditions), deficit of qualified human resources (potential), as well as lack of public and institutional awareness.

Social and cultural barriers are inseparably linked with values and standards of the society and person that have negative impact on perception and acceptability of renewable energy and are changed slowly.

Institutional and political barriers include existing industry, infrastructure and energy market regulation. Existing industrial structures are characterised by high concentration, while statutory and legal provisions that regulate activity of energy enterprises are still made with regard to monopolies. Technical rules and standards were changed based on the assumption that energy systems are large and centralised, as well as characterised by high power intensity and/or high electric voltage.

Additional barrier may be conditioned by intellectual property rights, charges and insufficient public financial support.

Unlike barriers, issues are not easily solved by means of policy and programmes.The problem is that this resource may be too scanty to be useful in a specific place or for

a specific purpose.Some renewable energy resources, such as wind or solar energy, are changeable and are

not always available for use for power supply purposes in case of need. Furthermore, energy density of many renewable energy sources is relatively low and therefore their capacity may be insufficient for individual purposes, such as quite large industrial enterprises.

It may be noted from the global experience that great number and diversity of political measures in the field of RES that are motivated by the most different factors stimulated accelerated growth of a number of RES technologies in recent years. For politicians who are willing to render support to development and application of RES technologies for the purposes of climate change mitigation, it is extremely important to consider the RES potential for the purpose of emission reduction in the life cycle perspective. There were developed different lines of policy to consider each stage of the process of assessment and implementation of the RES technologies, including market preparation, market penetration, technical operation and monitoring, as well as integration into the existing systems.

Some policy elements proved to be more effective and efficient in the process of rapid expansion of RES use, but a universal policy does not exist. Experience demonstrates that different types of policy or their combinations may be effective and efficient depending on such factors as the level of technologies, available capital, and easiness of integration into the existing system, as well as local and national resource base for RES:

• One of the important problems is finding the way to make the RES policy and carbon pricing policy interact in such a way that their advantage is rather determined by synergy instead of compromises. In the long term, support of acquisition of technological knowledge on RES may contribute to reduction of mitigation costs, while carbon price setting may increase RES competitiveness.

• In particular, according to conclusions of some studies, certain incentive tariffs as one of elements were effective and efficient to encourage renewable electric power generation, mainly due to combination of a long-term fixed price and payment of insurance premium, network connections and guaranteed purchase of all renewable electric power. Quota policy in combination with incentive tariffs may be effective and efficient, for example, due to long-term contracts.

RES technologies may play a more important role, if they are adopted together with a “favourable” policy. Preferential conditions for RES may be created by consideration of positive interactions of this policy with other types of political measures in the field of RES, as well as other lines of policy that are not related to RES. Because all types of renewable energy generation are related to spatial factors, it is necessary to take into consideration, within a

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respective policy, such specific elements as land use, employment, agriculture, water resources, transportations, food security and trade, available infrastructure, as well as other sectoral factors. Public policy lines that are mutually complementary are characterised by greater success probability.

Development of RES technologies in the electric power sector will require, for example, taking into consideration, within a respective policy, the necessity of their integration into transmission and distribution system both from technical and institutional points of view. The network must be able to cope with both traditional power supply, which is often more centralised, and RES-based power supply, which is often unstable and distributable.

If public policy institutions that are responsible for decision-making intend to increase the RES share and accomplish ambitious tasks of climate change mitigation, then long-term obligations and flexible approach to learning lessons from available experience will be extremely important. In order to achieve international levels of stabilisation of greenhouse gases (GHG) concentration, which include a significant RES shares, a structural shift in contemporary power system will be required in the course of next several decades. The available time period is very brief and limited to one, or two at most, decade(s) during which it is necessary to develop and integrate RES into the system created in the context of existing power structure that is very different from what might be required in case of a broader adoption of RES in future.

2. Analysis of the results of wind energy development

Use of wind energy for electric power generation on an industrial scale became reasonably practical only in 1970-s due to technical achievements and public support measures. There is a number of various technologies for use of wind energy for the most different fields of application, but the primary type of use of the wind energy, which is connected to climate change mitigation, is electric power generation by big wind turbines place either onshore or offshore, including on freshwater bodies.

Capacity of wind turbines (WM) installed by the end 2009 could meet approximately 1.8% of the global electrical power demand. Wind energy has significant potential for reduction of GHG emissions in the short-term (2020) and long-term (2015) prospect. Therefore, by 2050 WM contribution may exceed 20% subject to making significant efforts aimed at reduction of GHG emissions and elimination of other obstacles hindering a wider application of wind energy. Onshore wind energy is already used in many countries at fast rates, and there are no insurmountable technical barriers that exclude ever higher levels of wind energy inclusion into power supply systems. Moreover, although average wind speeds are very different depending on a specific place, most of the world regions have technical potential allowing large-scale use of wind energy. The wind energy cost in some areas with great wind resources is competitive with current prices in the energy market, even not taking into consideration the ecological component. Nevertheless, political incentive measures are still required in the majority of world regions in order to ensure fast rates of development. In this case, continuous progress is forecasted in the field of wind energy use technology allowing continued reduction of the cost of energy generated by wind and improvement of wind energy potential for the purposes of reduction of GHG emissions.

As far as European countries are concerned, wind turbines provided generation of 7.2% of electric power demand in 2013. And on the average, this type of RES was developing in the European Union countries at significant rates: 1995 - 2 447 MW, 2000 - 12 711 MW, 2005 – 40 569 MW, 2010 – 84 624 MW, 2012 – 106 421 MW, 2013 - 117 935 MW. In 2013 the wind turbines capacity was 12.3% in relation to the total capacity of all generating energy sources.

Generation of electric power by means of wind requires transformation of kinetic energy of moving air into electric power, while the engineering problem for wind power consists in construction of cost efficient wind turbines and power plants for implementation of this

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transformation. Contemporary industrial wind turbines passed the development process from small simple machines to large and very complex devices. Scientific and engineering experience and achievements, as well as more perfect computer aids, design standards, industrial production methods contributed to these engineering developments.

Despite conduct of studies of the most diverse turbine configurations, today the market is overwhelmingly dominated by horizontal axis wind turbines with three blades on the tower directed towards the air flow. With a view to reduce the incremental cost of the power generated by wind, the sizes of typical wind turbines were significantly increased, and the most part of onshore wind turbines installed worldwide in 2009 had rated capacity of 1.5-2.5 MW. As of 2010, onshore wind turbines are usually installed on 50-100-metre high towers with rotors, often having 50 – 100 metres in diametre. Industrial wind turbines with large rotor diametres and towers of more than 125 metres high are also operated; even larger mills are at the stage of development.

Wind energy has swiftly proved to be a part of the main branch of electric power industry. Installed capacity increased 12 times in the course of 10 years, reaching almost 160 GW by the end of 2009. The major part of the production potential was installed on ground plots. By the end of 2009 the countries with the highest installed capacity were US (35 GW), China (26 (GW), Germany (26 (GW), Spain (19 GW) and India (11 GW). Total capital expenditures for new wind turbines installed in 2009 were 57 bln US dollars2005, and global direct employment in this sector was estimated at approximately 500 000 people in 2009.

In 2009 about 39% of all additional capacity in the US and EU was received at the expense of wind power; in China, 16% of net additional capacity was received at the expense of wind power in 2009. On a global scale, in the period from 2000 to 2009 about 11% of all net increase in new electric power capacity was received by means of new wind turbines; only in 2009 this figure was probably over 20%. As a result of this, many countries begin to achieve relatively high levels of annual contributions of wind electrical power into their respective power supply systems. By the end of 2009 wind power capacity was able to provide approximately 20% of annual electric power demand in Denmark, 14% in Portugal, 14% in Spain, 11% in Ireland and 8% in Germany.

Despite these trends, wind power still accounts for a relatively small share in the total global power supply.

It is conditioned by a number of issues and barriers:- increased cost of wind energy use as compared with market energy prices, at least in

that case, if ecological benefits and consequences are not expressed in monetary form;- solving issues related to the effect of wind power changeability;- problems of construction of new power lines;- labour-intensive and long procedures of planning, placement and obtaining permits;- necessity of technical progress and high cost of the wind power technology;- deficit of organisational and technical knowledge in the regions where the experience of

large-scale use of the wind energy has not been accumulated yet.As a result, wind power development depends on a wide range of the governmental

policy measures.

With development of wind power, concern about its integration into electric systems has also grown. The nature and dimension of the integration issue will depend on characteristics of the existing electric system and level of the contribution of electricity received by means of wind power. Nevertheless, analytical information and data on experience of operation show that in case of a low or medium rate of the wind power contribution (in this case, it is defined as up to 20% from the total average annual electric power demand) wind power integration, as a rule, does not create any insurmountable technical barriers and is feasible from the economic point of view. At the same time, even in case of a low or medium rate of the wind power contribution,

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some (and sometimes, related to a specific network) technical and/or organisational issues must be solved. Accordingly, expenditures related to wind power integration will grow and must be taken into consideration with its deployment.

Wind power is also characterised by other specific features and problems that may arise in the course of wind power integration into existing power systems and that must be taken into consideration when planning and operating an electric system to ensure its reliable and economic work. These characteristic features include:

- localised nature of wind resources with possible consequences for a new power transmission infrastructure;

- changeable output power generated by wind energy within many time scales; - lower levels of predictability of output power generated by wind energy as compared

with those levels that are usual for many other types of power generation plants.In order to ensure possibility of future reliable and economical operation of an electric

network, detailed planning of a network intended for a new infrastructure of generation and transmission of electric power is applied. In addition, with increase of wind power output, there is also an increasing necessity of a more active role to be played by wind power plants in maintaining operability and power quality in the electric system. At the same time, when making assessments of power transmission adequacy, there should be taken into consideration dependence of a specific place from wind resources, along with study of any variants by means of comparison of expenditures for power transmission system expansion for obtaining access to wind resources of higher quality with expenditures for obtaining access to wind resources of lower quality that require lower capital investments into a transmission system. Although methods and goals are changed depending on one or another region, the wind power contribution into ensuring adequacy of electric power generation usually depends on conformity between output power generated by wind energy and period of times when there is a high risk of electric power supply shortages which usually takes place in periods of increased demand for electric power. The maximum wind power contribution into adequate electric power generation is usually decreased with increase of the wind electric power share, but aggregation of wind power units at greater areas may slow down this decrease, if a required potential for power transmission is available. A relatively low average wind power contribution into adequate electric power generation (as compared with fossil fuel plants) indicates that electric systems with a higher wind power volume are also characterised by a tendency to receive a much greater total rated generating capacity for meeting the same peak electric energy demand than electric systems that do not have great wind power volumes. A certain part of this generating capacity will be operated, but in rare cases, therefore, the structure of other generating capacities will be characterised by a tendency to an ever greater shift (on economic basic) towards flexible “peaks” and a reverse tendency of “base” load resources.

Increase of the wind electric power share will also have beneficial effect on meeting the mass market demand, main power storage technologies, large-scale use of electric vehicles and their respective contribution into increase of the system flexibility by means of controlled battery charging, switching excessive wind energy to fuel production or local heat supply, as well as territorial diversification of wind power plants placement.

Despite the existing problems, the currently available experience of WM operation in different parts of the world demonstrates that electric systems can be reliably operated in case of an increased wind power contribution; in 2010 wind power met from 10 to approximately 20% of the annual electric power demand in four countries (Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Ireland).

Wind power has a significant potential of reduction of GHG emissions. Moreover, wind power usually has comparatively low environmental impact. However, like other kinds of industrial activity, this impact must be taken into consideration for the purpose of prevention of adverse effect on activity and sustenance of comfortable conditions for human beings. Belarusian technical and commercial tenders (TKP) set requirements concerning planning and placement of wind turbines in order to reduce such impact.

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Construction and operation of wind turbines have such consequences for wildlife as collisions of birds and bats with wind turbines and environmental and ecosystem changes, and the nature and scale of these consequences depend on specific places and types. Annual figures of bird deaths amount to 0.95–11.67/MW a year. Bat death cases were studied not so intensively, but reported rates of their death were 0.2-53.3/MW a year. The scale of bird and bat death as a result of such collisions and consequences of this phenomenon may be considered in the context of other cases of their death due to other causes of anthropogenic nature and therefore onshore wind turbine are not the cause of significant reduction of bird populations at the present time.

Study results invariably indicated that wind power is well accepted by general public. However, assistance on the part of local decision-making authorities is needed in many cases to make this support be expressed in the form of accelerated development. In this connection, in addition to concern about ecological problems, concern about impact of wind turbines on local conditions has been repeatedly expressed. The most important fact is probably that the current wind power technology is related to large structures, that is why wind turbines are inevitably seen against the landscape. Other impacts that raise concerns include land use (including possible radar clutter), as well as impact arising in the immediate vicinity to the mill, such as noise and pulsation. Regardless of the degree of expressed concern about social and ecological problems, their solution is a significant part of any successful process of planning and placement of wind turbines, while participation of local community is often an integral part of this process. Although some of these problems may be easily minimised, other problems, such as visual impact, are the most difficult to be solved. In practice, standards that regulate planning and placement are characterised by a wide variation of requirements and may also be obstacles for wind power development in the country.

Although onshore wind power technology has already become an object of large-scale industrial production and use, with expected continuation of a stage-by-stage progress in improvement of turbine design procedure, more efficient material use, reliability enhancement and longer component service life. Wind turbines and turbines are complex systems requiring complex design and engineering approaches for optimisation of the cost and operating characteristics. In terms of wind turbine requirements, it must be taken into consideration that selection of a wind turbine must comply with a certain regime of wind resources, along with necessity of taking into consideration location of the turbine, procedures of its placement, installation and integration into electric systems.

A number of opportunities is studied at the components level, including: progressive concepts of the tower structure that reduce the need in big cranes and minimise needs for materials; improvement of rotor and blade efficiency due to a more perfect structure along with materials of higher quality and advanced manufacturing methods; reduction of energy losses and higher operational availability due to a more perfect control of turbines and monitoring of their condition; the most recent models of transmissions, generators and electronic devices for power plants; and a more perfect industrial training.

Wind turbines are designed in such a way to stand a wide range of unfavourable conditions with minimal load. For example, it is expected that research is such fields as aeroelasticity, unstable aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, advanced control systems and atmospheric science will result in of more perfect design possibilities and, therefore, will enhance reliability of the technology, contributing to further improvement of the structural design. Research will help to improve the wind turbine structure, enhance accuracy of assessment of wind turbine operating characteristics, assessments of wind resources, short-term power forecasting.

Despite significant reduction of the wind energy cost since 1980-s, currently political measures must be taken in order to ensure adoption of this energy in our country at fast rates. At the same time the wind energy cost may be competitive with actual market energy prices, even not taking into consideration relative ecological consequences. Moreover, continuous progress is expected in the field of technology that will contribute to further reduction of the costs.

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In future years electric power systems involving RES may become dominant power supply type in some regions, especially if the demand for heat supply and transport is also provided at the expense of electric energy, which may be achieved by means of parallel development of electric vehicles, increase of heat supply and cooling using electric power (including heat pumps), rendering flexible services to meet the demand (including use of intellectual metres) and other innovation technologies.

Most power supply systems may be adjusted to generation of a higher percentage of the power by RES than it is at the present time, in particular, if the RES percentage is relatively low (it is usually assumed that electric power share generated by RES is not more than 20%). Most power supply systems will require development and adaption to increase the renewable energy share in the future. In all cases, the maximum practicable percentage will depend on the type of used technologies, availability of resources for RES production, as well as the type and age of the existing power systems. Local, national and regional initiatives may contribute to further integration and increase the degree of distribution. The existing power systems may be fully adapted in order to increase the RES use percentage as compared to use at the present time.

Electric power systems have several important characteristic that have impact on the issues related to RES integration. Electric power demand is changed in the course of a day, week and season depending on the needs of electric power consumers. Complex diversity of the demand is registered in different schedules and dispatching instructions to be developed for maintaining continuous balance between supply and demand. Generators and other resources of power systems are used to ensure control of reactive energy in order to maintain voltage within certain limits. Change of supply and demand at intervals of a minute is managed by automatic output control by means of servicing which is called load regulation and following, while management of changes in long-range time scales from hours to days is carried out by means of scheduling and distribution of the output (including output switching on and off which also known as planning of startup and slowdown of the units). This uninterrupted balancing is required regardless of the mechanism used for its achievement.

Apart from maintaining balance between supply and demand, within electric power systems, between the moment of output and meeting the demand electric power must be transmitted by means of transmission and distribution systems with bounded potential. Planning for many years to come is required for adequate output and network capacity. Electric power systems planning must be based on understanding that individual system components, including output components and network, will be fail from time to time (emergency). However, the required reliability degree must be ensured by accumulation of adequate resources. One of important parametres used to determine increase of output for meeting the demand with required reliability level is called actual capacity. Some RES characteristics are important for RES integration into power systems taking into account the design philosophy of power systems. In particular, changeability and unpredictability of RES are taken into consideration for planning and scheduling of electric power systems, location of renewable energy resources is a relevant indicator for assessment of the need for electric power networks, and potential factor, actual capacity and electric power plant characteristics are indicators.

Wind energy is unstable and only partially schedulable: output on the basis of this resource may be reduced, if necessary, but increase of the power output depends on availability of the resource. Such changeability and partial unpredictability of this renewable energy source increase load on power output that provides possibility of scheduling management or on other resources that are necessary for ensuring balance between supply and demand with a view to RES instability. In many cases, changeability and partial unpredictability are mitigated, to some extent, by geographic diversity – changes and forecasting errors do not always happen at the same time and at the same place. A common problem is that renewable resources are linked up to the place and, therefore, concentrated power generated on the basis of renewable energy at one place may require transmission for significant distances and, consequently, expansion of networks. Schedulable renewable sources (including hydroelectric power, bioenergy) in many

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cases may provide additional flexible possibilities to enable the systems to integrate other renewable sources and thereby increase actual capacity.

Thus, one of key issues is importance of the network infrastructure, both in respect of power delivery from generating plants to the consumer and in respect of ensuring balance for larger regions. Strengthening of ties within electric power systems and establishing additional interconnections with other systems may directly mitigate the impact of unstable and uncertain RES. Most RES require network expansion, although the extent of expansion depends on resources and their location with regard to the existing network infrastructure. In general, main changes will be required in generation mix structures of electric power plants, infrastructures and operating procedures of electric power systems in order to carry out transfer to increased power generation at the expense of renewable sources, maintaining the level of expenditures and ecological efficiency. These changes will require significant investments made a good time in advance for the purpose of ensuring reliable and safe electric power supply.

In addition to improvement of network infrastructure by accumulation of operating experience and conducting research, several other important integration scenarios were defined:

Adding flexibility to output: Increased adoption of unstable renewable sources has influence on increase of the need for instability and uncertainty management. Generation mix structures require increased output flexibility. Generation provides the most part of the available power systems flexibility, which is required to cope with instability and uncertainty by means of increase, reduction or change of output from time to time, if it may be necessary. Increased flexibility implies either increased volume of investments into new flexible power output, or improvement of the existing electric power plants to enable them to operate in a more flexible mode.

Demand management: Notwithstanding the fact that demand management was historically practices only for reduction of the demand during average load periods or demand during peak load periods, demand management may potentially contribute to meeting the needs related to increased output of unstable renewable energy. Development of advanced communication technologies with intelligent electricity meters connected to control centres provides potential for access to high levels of the demand flexibility. Electric power consumers may be given incentives for modification and/or reduction of consumption by ranging electric power price in different time periods, in particular, by increasing cost in the highest demand periods. This demand reduction during the highest demand periods may mitigate the impact of low actual capacity of some types of changeable output. Moreover, potential demand reduction during any period of the year may give opportunities to energy saving, thus removing the necessity to ensure this reserve at the expense of generation of required resources. Demand, which may be planned in order to have an opportunity to meet it at any time or compare with electric energy prices in the real time mode and which may be taken into consideration in the process of balancing in the course of the day, will mitigate operating problems that are expected to become more complicated by unstable power generation.

Electric power storage: Reduction of transmitted renewable energy may be lowered and units with base system load may operate more efficiently by means of electric power storage in that cases when renewable capacity is high and demand is not significant and by means of power generation in that cases when renewable capacity is low and demand is high. Storage may also reduce overloads in an electric power network and reduce the need for transmission technology update or postpone it. In theory, such technologies as batteries or flywheels, which retain lesser amounts of energy (minutes-hours) may be used to provide energy within intra-hour time frames for regulation of the balance between supply and demand.

Improvement of operating / market methods and planning methods: To provide assistance in solving problems pertaining to instability and uncertainty that are related to power generation by unstable sources, capacity forecasting may be combined with improved operating methods to identify both the reserve required for maintaining balance between demand and power generation and the optimum power generation planning. Being close to the real time, a

13

more frequent decision making in respect of planning (for example, shorter time for gate closure at power exchanges) allows use of a more recent and more accurate information for power volumes scheduling. Balance at larger areas or distributed balance between territories is also preferable in case of large volumes of unstable generation in connection to summing up the benefits of multifactorial dispersed renewable energy sources.

Summarising, it may be said that renewable energy may be integrated into all types of electric power systems from large interconnected systems of continental scale to small autonomous systems. System characteristics, including network infrastructure, demand and geographic location, generating capacity structure, possibilities of control and communication in combination with location, geographic area of servicing, instability and predictability of renewable sources define the scale of problems related to integration. When the amount of renewable energy sources is increased, creation of an additional electric network infrastructure (transmission and / or distribution) is usually required. It will be more difficult to integrate unstable renewable energy sources, such as wind, than schedulable energy sources, such as bioenergy. These problems and costs may be minimised by adoption of a portfolio of scenarios, including interconnections of electric power networks, development of additional flexible power generation, balancing in larger territories, hour-based trade, ensuring compliance between demand and supply, storage technologies, improved forecasting, as well as tools for operation and planning of the systems.

3. Used of renewable energy sources in the energy balance of the European Union countries

As is evident from the above analysis of results of renewable energy development, European countries followed the path of creation of a consistent sustainable system of its development allowing making adjustments by means of use of different tools. This allowed them to coordinate their actions aimed at building capacity they use, with each state retaining its priorities in RES development.

Energy 2020 Programme that was adopted for the European Union countries in 2010 is implemented quite successfully. Its objective is receiving 20% of energy by means of renewable sources.

According to the most recent data, its implementation by energy types is as follows. That is, a level of 15.3 5 (the objective is 20%) is achieved by now, with electricity generation at 26% with planned 34%.

As to implementation of Energy 2020 by each country, each of them had different plans that are given in the table as 2020 objected. The achieved level is given in the 2013 column.

Table 2 Country Achieved

RES as of 2013Objective for the countryRES 2020

Belgium 7.9 13.0Bulgaria 19.0 16.0Czech Republic 12.4 13.0Denmark 27.2 30.0Germany 12.4 18.0Estonia 25.6 25.0Ireland 7.8 16.0Greece 15.0 18.0Spain 15.4 20.0France 14.2 23.0

14

Croatia 18.0 20.0Italy 16.7 17.0Cyprus 8.1 13.0Latvia 37.1 40.0Lithuania 23.0 23.0Luxemburg 3.6 11.0Hungary 9.8 13.0Malta 3.8 10.0Netherlands 4.5 14.0Austria 32.6 34.0Poland 11.3 15.0Portugal 25.7 31.0Romania 23.9 24.0Slovenia 21.5 25.0Slovakia 9.8 14.0Finland 36.8 38.0Sweden 52.1 49.0Great Britain 5.1 15.0European Union 15.0 20.0

As is seen, some countries have already achieved the planned level, while others are still on the way to their objective.

Subsequent decisions confirmed the objective of this programme and suggested its further development for the period until 2030. At the same time there is a task of bringing the WM share up to 27% in the total amount of used energy and the electric power share up to 44%.

For this purpose different tools and preferences are used, but it is underlined that natural market path must be the main route of development. Possible ways of support to RES are set forth in the Commission staff working document. European Commission guidance for the design of renewables support schemes SWD (2013) 439 final, Brussels, 5.11.2013. These measures are continuously replaced and modified in different countries.

When decrease in the rates of RES development is upcoming, respective additional expansionary measures are taken. For example, a practice to introduce incentives to power producers that generate it for own use was recommended in 2015, which is recorded in Commission staff working document. Best practices on Renewable Energy Self-consumption. SWD(2015) 141 final. Brussels, 15.7.2015. Among other things, there is a notable fact that it is suggested to pay more attention to private small-scale power producers, by removing barriers for them.

4. Ratio of the capacity of plants that use nuclear energy and wind energy by different countries. Swedish example

Data on ratio of installed capacities and volumes generated by different sources of electric power generation in European countries are given in tables 3, 4 and 5.

Table 3. Installed capacity, MWCountry Total Thermal

power plants

Nuclear power plants

Hydropower plants

Wind power plants

Solar power plants

Bio Other

15

Austria 23823 7847 - 13427 1555 324 426

Belgium 20105 6639 5926 1425 1939 2986 1190

Bulgaria 13520 6585 2000 3191 701 1039 47

Cyprus 1622 1478 - - - 144 -

Czech Republic

20694 12054 4040 2261 278 2061 -

Germany 189484 85267 12068 10662 36561 37981 6359

Denmark 15033 8913 - 9 4897 606 608

Estonia 2711 2300 - 8 301 101 -

Spain 106309 48109 7866 19396 22772 6902 716 432

Finland 17453 8703 2752 3234 504 - 2085 175

France 128943 24411 63130 25411 9120 5292 1254

England 74931 53287 9749 3969 6528 - 1398

Greece 17536 10056 - 3237 1662 2436 47 99

Croatia 4272 1770 - 2112 340 30 20

Hungary 8574 6095 1890 57 329 6 197

Ireland 9160 6241 - 530 2165 - 55 169

Italy 124951 71254 - 22009 8542 18620 4256

Lithuania 4091 2620 - 1026 288 69 78 10

Luxemburg 2027 495 - 1334 57 109 11 21

Latvia 2623 905 - 1578 58 - 82

Malta 444 444

Netherlands 33213 27729 492 38 2874 1000 400 680

Poland 36000 29098 - 2354 3753 23 772

Portugal 17894 7025 - 5684 4540 396 187

Romania 21137 9355 1300 6332 2894 1162 94

Sweden 39549 5285 9528 16155 5420 79 3082

Slovakia 3456 1214 696 1245 2 260 40

Slovenia 8076 2692 1940 2536 3 561 254

Switzerland 18557 426 3308 13805 49 437 289

Island 2588 63 - 1860 2

16

Norway 32909 1090 - 31062 814 - -

Serbia 8564 5574 - 2990 - - -

Turkey 69520 41514 - 23647 3630 - -

Table. Installed capacity,%

Country Total Thermal power plants

Nuclear power plants

Hydropower plants

Wind power plants

Solar power plants

Bio

Austria 100 32.9 - 56.4 6.5 1.4 1.8

Belgium 100 33.0 29.5 7.0 9.6 14.9 6.0

Bulgaria 100 48.7 14.8 23.6 5.2 7.7 0.3

Cyprus 100 91.1 - - - 8.9 -

Czech Republic

100 58.2 19.5 10.9 1.3 10.0 -

Germany 100 50.0 6.4 5.6 19.3 20.0 3.4

Denmark 100 59.3 - 00.6 32.6 4.0 4.0

Estonia 100 84.8 - 0.3 11.1 3.7 -

Spain 100 45.3 7.4 18.2 21.4 6.5 0.7

Finland 100 49.3 15.8 18.5 2.3 - 11.9

France 100 18.9 49.0 19.7 7.1 4.1 1.0

England 100 71.1 13.0 5.3 8.7 - 1.9

Greece 100 57.3 - 18.5 9.5 13.9 0.3

Croatia 100 41.4 - 49.4 8.0 0.7 0.5

Hungary 100 71.1 22.0 0.7 3.8 0.07 2.3

Ireland 100 68.1 - 5.8 23.6 - 0.6

Italy 100 57.1 - 17.6 6.8 14.9 3.4

Lithuania 100 64.0 - 25.0 7.0 1.7 1.9

Luxemburg 100 24.4 - 65.8 2.8 5.4 0.5

Latvia 100 34.5 - 60.2 2.2 - 3.1

Malta 100 100 - - - - -

Netherlands 100 83.5 1.5 0.1 8.7 3.0 1.2

Poland 100 80.8 - 6.5 10.4 0.06 2.1

Portugal 100 39.3 - 31.8 25.4 2.2 1.0

17

Romania 100 44.3 6.2 30.0 13.7 5.5 0.4

Sweden 100 13.4 24.1 40.8 13.7 0.2 7.8

Slovakia 100 35.1 20.1 36.0 0.1 75 1.2

Slovenia 100 33.3 24.0 31.4 0.04 6.9 3.1

Switzerland 100 2.3 17.8 74.4 0.3 2.4 1.6

Island 100

Norway 100 3.3 - 94.4 2.5 - -

Serbia 100 65.0 - 35.0 - - -

Turkey 100 59.7 - 34.0 5.2 - -

18

Table 5

Country

Population,mln people

Areakm2

Capacity

GW

GenerationGW/hour Capacity

of nuclear power plants,MW ]

Generation at nuclear power plants, GW hour

Share of nuclear power plants in the balance (2014 ),%

Number of nuclear power plants / Number of nuclear power units at nuclear power plants

RES capacity, MW

Generation by RES / WMGW-hour

WM share in the balance,%

Conclusion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

 Belgium 11.3 30.53 20105 83.46 5927 42.64 51.1 2/7 1658 12.91/3.6 4.3

 Bulgaria 7.2 120.99 13520 43.78 1926 14.17 32.4 1/2 683 7.64/1.4 3.1

Czech Republic

10.5 78.9 20694 87.073904 30.75 35.3 2/6 262

10.21/0.5 1.4

Denmark 5.7 42.4 15033 34.75 - - 4810 15.99/11.1 32.0

 Germany 80.71 357.0 189484 663.16 12074 97.29 14.7 8/9 34660 158.15/51.7 7.8

Estonia 1.3 42.0 2711 13.28 - 248 1.22/0.5 3.8

19

Table 5

Country

Population,mln people

Areakm2

Capacity

GW

GenerationGW/hour Capacity

of nuclear power plants,MW ]

Generation at nuclear power plants, GW hour

Share of nuclear power plants in the balance (2014 ),%

Number of nuclear power plants / Number of nuclear power units at nuclear power plants

RES capacity, MW

Generation by RES / WMGW-hour

WM share in the balance,%

Conclusion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Ireland4.6 70.3 9160 26.12

- 19415.95/4.5 17.2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Greece 10.8 132.0 17536 57.15 - 1809 14.39/4.1 7.2

 Spain 46.4 34.0 106309 283.57 7121 56.73 20.4 5/7 22958 112.96/53.9 19.0

 France 64.2 640.1 128943 572.52 63130 423.69 76.9 19/58 8202 101.68/16.0 2.8

Croatia 4.2 56.5 4272 13.43 - 257 8.76/0.5 3.7

20

Table 5

Country

Population,mln people

Areakm2

Capacity

GW

GenerationGW/hour Capacity

of nuclear power plants,MW ]

Generation at nuclear power plants, GW hour

Share of nuclear power plants in the balance (2014 ),%

Number of nuclear power plants / Number of nuclear power units at nuclear power plants

RES capacity, MW

Generation by RES / WMGW-hour

WM share in the balance,%

Conclusion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Italy60.8 301.4 124951 289.81

- 8542113.91/14.9 5.1

Cyprus9.25 1622 4.29

- 1470.33/0.2 4.7

Latvia 2.0 64.6 2623 6.21 - 67 3.53/0.1 1.6

Lithuania2.9 65.2 4091 4.76

- 2792.07/0.6 12.6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Luxemburg 0.6 2.6 2027 2.89 - 58 1.41/0.1 3.4

21

Table 5

Country

Population,mln people

Areakm2

Capacity

GW

GenerationGW/hour Capacity

of nuclear power plants,MW ]

Generation at nuclear power plants, GW hour

Share of nuclear power plants in the balance (2014 ),%

Number of nuclear power plants / Number of nuclear power units at nuclear power plants

RES capacity, MW

Generation by RES / WMGW-hour

WM share in the balance,%

Conclusion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

 Hungary 9.9 93.0 8574 30.27 1889 15.37 53.6 1/4 329 2.79/0.7 2.3

Malta 0.4 0.3 444 2.5 - 0 0.4/0 0

 Netherlan

ds

16.9 41.5 33213 100.88482 2.89 4.0 1/1 2713

12.21/5.6 5.55

Austria 8.6 83.9 23823 68.30 - 1645 54.11/3.2 4.7

Poland 38.0 312.7 36000 164.56 - 3429 17.63/6.0 3.65

Portugal 10.4 92.2 17894 51.67 - 4610 30.61/12.0 23.2

22

Table 5

Country

Population,mln people

Areakm2

Capacity

GW

GenerationGW/hour Capacity

of nuclear power plants,MW ]

Generation at nuclear power plants, GW hour

Share of nuclear power plants in the balance (2014 ),%

Number of nuclear power plants / Number of nuclear power units at nuclear power plants

RES capacity, MW

Generation by RES / WMGW-hour

WM share in the balance,%

Conclusion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

 Romania 19.9 238.4 21137 58.89 1300 11.62 18.5 1/2 2773 20.50/4.5 7.65

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

 Slovenia 2.1 20.3 8076 16.09 688 5.3 37.2 1/1 4 5.39/0 -

 Slovakia 5.4 49.0 3456 28.83 1814 15.72 56.8 2/4 5 6.67/0 -

 Finland 5.7 338.4 17453 71.25 2752 23.61 34.6 2/4 447 25.61/0.8 1.12

Norway 5.2 385.2 32909

 Sweden 9.8 450.0 39549 153.17 9470 66.46 41.5 3/10 4194 82.82/9.8 6.4

23

Table 5

Country

Population,mln people

Areakm2

Capacity

GW

GenerationGW/hour Capacity

of nuclear power plants,MW ]

Generation at nuclear power plants, GW hour

Share of nuclear power plants in the balance (2014 ),%

Number of nuclear power plants / Number of nuclear power units at nuclear power plants

RES capacity, MW

Generation by RES / WMGW-hour

WM share in the balance,%

Conclusion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

 Great Britain

64.8 229.9 74931 359.159373 70.61 17.2 8/16 11209

56.57/28.4 7.9

 Switzerlan

d d

8.2 41.3 185573333 26468.90 37.9 4/5

24

The following conclusions may be made based on the analysis of these data:The share of installed RES capacities in the total balance is from 1.3% (Czech Republic)

to 32.6% (Denmark) in those countries where RES development has systemic sustainable nature. The share of electric power generation by WM is from 1% (Finland) to 32% (Denmark), respectively.

In the countries that have nuclear power plants, the WM share is 1.1% to 21.4% by installed capacity and from 1.1% to 19.0% by electric power generation.

In the countries that have only one nuclear power plant, the WM share is 3.8% to 13.7% by installed capacity and from 3.1% to 7.65% by electric power generation.

In the countries with a RES quota system subject to availability of nuclear power plants (Belgium, France, England, Romania, Sweden), the WM share is 7.1% to 13.7% by installed capacity and from 2.8% to 7.9% by electric power generation.

As a part of this work, the electric power industry of Sweden was examined and analysed as an example, as well as the renewable energy generation structure in Sweden. This example was taken due to the following considerations:

- Sweden, like Belarus, is among the countries that do not have their own hydrocarbon resources in the form of commercially significant deposits of oil, natural gas, etc., but at the same time has certain resources for renewable energy development;

- In Sweden, there has not been set an objective to make wind power an alternative type of electric power generation in relation to the main prevailing power industries – nuclear and hydro powers;

- In Sweden, wind power is one of priority RES types, but not the predominant one;- a significant part of the Swedish territory covered with woodland;- for many years Sweden has a developed and established system of stimulation and

regulation of RES development; - Sweden is not a global leader in WM production, etc.Sweden sought and seeks to ensure sustainable development of the energy sector,

preservation of the environment, free competition and guaranteed power supply. The last requirement is one of the main conditions of sustainable development of the Swedish economy, and its fulfillment must be ensured by means of efficient power generation, distribution and consumption with maximum use of renewable sources.

The aforesaid circumstances, along with ambitious obligations in the field of renewable energy and environmental protection assumed by the Swedish government within the framework of concerted energy policy of the European Union, define the Swedish policy in the field of energy sector.

Main objectives of the Swedish energy policy, as well as key indicators to be achieved by 2020:

- increase of the renewable sources share in the total volume of energy consumption to the minimum level of 50%;

- increase of the share of energy from renewable sources used in the transport sector up to 10% (the long-term objective to be achieved by 2030 is unconditional refusal from hydrocarbon fuel in transportations);

- increase of energy untilisation efficiency by 20%;- reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 40% as compared with 1990 (the long-term

objective is complete elimination of the environmental impact from greenhouse gas emissions by 2050);

- unconditional refusal from hydrocarbon sources in the heating sector.The above-listed objectives (key indicators) are set forth in two governmental draft laws

that, after being approved by the country’s parliament in summer 2009, were named Unified Climate and Energy Policy.

Renewable energy sources (RES) are given the place of primary importance in the Swedish climate and energy strategy. The renewable sources share in the Swedish power balance

25

is the highest in Europe. If in 1990 the RES share in the total energy consumption of the country amounted to approximately 33%, in 2009 it achieved 45%. This result became important due to persistent efforts of the Swedish government aimed at reduction of the dependence on oil and other hydrocarbon sources and encouragement of renewable sources energy production.

Increase of the RES share in the total Swedish energy balance and, in particular, in the transportation sector, are the most important objectives of the governmental energy policy.

Today the main contribution into production of renewable energy in Sweden is made by biosources (wood waste and wood waste fuel, so called “black liquor”, bioethanol, biodiesel fuel, biogas), as well as hydro power and wind power.

Use of significant bioenergy volumes is a distinctive feature of Swedish energy sector. The volume of energy received from this source amounted to approximately 127 TW-h in 2009. It was substantially more that the volume of energy received at Swedish nuclear power plants and hydropower plants, taken together (66 TW-h plus 50 TW-h). The share of biosources in the final energy consumption (after deduction of losses in nuclear power and losses during delivery and distribution of power) amounted to approximately 33%.

Also, a significant contribution into achievement of this high result is made by logging waste and by-products of pulp production. Logging and timber processing waste account for about a half of the energy received from biosources in Sweden. Another approximately 40% of energy is contributed by a by-product of pulp production, so called “black liquor”, which is used as an energy source (mainly thermal energy) for pulp plants.

In the field of energy efficiency, the governmental agenda has an objective of increasing efficiency of energy use in Sweden by 20% by 2020, including at the expense of governmental investments into energy saving.

In the field of elimination of the motor transport dependence on hydrocarbon fuel (HCF), the governmental agenda aims at complete elimination of this dependence by 2030 and comprises both tax regulation measures and investments into renewable types of fuel and development of alternative technologies.

Today the Swedish transport system depends on hydrocarbon fuel almost by 90%, with transport accounting for approximately one third of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Abolition of the transport tax for new “green cars” for the period of five years is one of main tools of tax incentives in the field of transport. This rule is valid in respect of cars run from July 1, 2009. Abolition of the transport tax replaced previously effective premiums for “green cars”.

The current definition of a “green car” is also applied to new gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles with carbon dioxide emissions not exceeding 120 g/km. The difference of the new system from the “premium” system is that it is applied not only to natural persons, but to legal persons as well.

Today the Swedish energy sector is based on four energy sources: oil and oil products, biofuel, hydro power and nuclear power. Coal and natural gas have a marginal place in the country’s energy balance. Although the role of wind power is not great today, it grows at fast rates.

Today the global practice has several mechanisms for support of electric power generation on the basis of renewable energy sources. The most popular of them are two: green tariffs and green certificates. In the first case, the state guarantees to acquire RES electric power from the producers at special, higher tariffs. They are set for a specific facility powered by alternative energy sources for the period of 10 – 25 years, ensuring thereby good profitability of such projects. In the second case, upon sale of the RES generated electric energy in the free market the producer receives a special certificate that may be sold later. The state provides demand for such certificates by introduction of legislative requirements for a RES share in the county’s economy, including benefits for the companies that use RES and fines for “dirty” companies.

The second variant of stimulation – certification – is effective in Sweden.

26

Table 6GREEN CERTIFICATES IN SWEDEN

The system of green certificates for electric power that was introduced in Sweden in 2003 replaced the system of grants and subsidies that had been applied previously.

The main objective of green certificates is to increase production of electric power from RES by 20 TW-h by 2020 as compared with 2002 level.

The system supports companies that use RES: hydro power plants and producers of electric power that generate it from wind energy, by burning biofuel and peat.

The system operation is based on the following principles:

The Ministry of Sustainable Development issues one certificate (in the electronic form) for each MW-h of generated energy to the generating companies that use RES. The certificate is valid for one year.

The Government of Sweden provides statutory introduction of annual quotas for purchase of green certificates for power supply organisations and large consumers of electric power in Sweden. Quotas are set for several years to come.

Green certificates are traded in a free market. The certificate price is defined by supply and demand balance in the market.

At the end of each reporting period organisation that have quotas must report on their fulfillment.

The certificate cost dynamics may be traced, for example, on the site of one of the brokers operating in the market of green certificates (http :// www . skm . se / priceinfo ).

It should be noted that, in the long run, support of the electric power producers that use RES is paid by end consumer – all citizens of Sweden. According to the experts’ estimates, the share of green certificates in the electric power cost for end consumers is about 3%.

Advantages of green certificates:

no bureaucratic delays that are characteristic to the system of grants and subsidies;

openness and transparency of the system,

no direct load on the state budget;

possibility to control the dynamics of growth of the electric power received from RES.

Green certificates gained an excellent reputation in Sweden, becoming an example for other European countries. Great Britain, Italy, Poland and Belgium introduced similar schemes of support to production of electric power from RES. Norway replicated the whole Swedish system, making it possible to unify the market of green certificates of these countries.

27

According to preliminary data for 2010, end-use energy demand in Sweden increased from 376 GW-h to 401 GW-h or by 6.6%, having slightly exceeded the level of 2008 (397 GW-h).

The most important energy carriers consumed by the industry are biofuel (38%) and electric power (36%). Besides them, other energy carriers that are important to Swedish industry are coal and coke (first of all, for metallurgy) and oil products.

Industry is the second largest sector of electric power consumption. In 2010 it accounted for over 36% (52.3 TW-h) of the consumption. It is significant that, as an energy source for Swedish industry, electric power is a bit behind biofuel. A similar balance is formed mainly due to pulp and paper industry where huge amounts of biofuel are used in the form of logging waste and black liquor, which is a by-product of pulp production.

The Swedish electric power industry is based on two main sources: hydro power and nuclear power. Both sources play approximately equal role and together provide about 90% of electric power generation. Statistics of production and consumption of electric power in Sweden is given in Table 7.

28

Table 7. Production and consumption of electric power in Sweden 2007

TW-h

2008

TW-h

2009

TW-h

2010

TW-h

2014

TW-h

Hydro power plants 65.5 68.6 65.3 66.2

Nuclear power plants 64.3 61.3 50.0 55.0 66.5

Thermal power plants 13.8 14.3 15.9 19.8

Wind power plants 1.4 2.0 2.5 3.5 9.8

Total 145.0 146.0 133.7 144.5

Net import/ (+) export (-) 1.3 -2.0 4.7 2.0

Consumption 146.3 144.0 138.4 146.5

Source: Central Statistics Bureau of Sweden

Swedish hydropower industry. Swedish hydropower sector is represented by approximately 1900 plants of different capacities. Only about 700 of them are regarded as large (according to Swedish criteria, over 1.5 MW). In a normal (in terms of the hydropower industry) year, when the precipitation level ensures due fill rate of water storage basins, Swedish hydropower plants generate about 64 TW-h of electric energy at an average, with 1200 “small” plants accounting for only 1.5 TW-h or about 2.3%. Overall installed capacity of all Swedish hydropower plants was 16200 MW (16.2 GW) at the end of 2009.

The main “player” in the Swedish hydropower industry is undoubtedly Vattenfall, a government-owned company, with overall capacity of its hydropower plants amounting to about 8.5 GW, i.e. more than 52 per cent of all hydropower capacities. According to the results of 2010, production of electric power at hydropower plants owned by Vattenfall was about 35.4 TW-h or about 53.5 of all hydroelectric power in Sweden.

As a part of the company’s investment programme intended for the period from 2004 to 2013, about 30 of hydropower plants owned by the company will be modernised. Implementation of this programme must ensure growth of electric power production in the volume of 400 GW-h by 2014.

Apart from Vattenfall, other large operators of hydropower plants in Sweden are such companies as Fortum (capacities at the level of about 3.14 GW), E.ON Sverige (1.6 GW), Statkraft Sverige AB (1.26 GW) and Skellefteå Kraft AB (674 MW). The share of these leading five companies accounts for almost 94%.

Nuclear power. Sweden currently operates nuclear power stations (10 nuclear reactors), including the largest nuclear power plant in Sweden - Ringhals near Gothenburg. The total capacity of Swedish nuclear power plants is 9 325 MW. Swedish nuclear power covers 40% of the country’s need for electric power. An important aspect of nuclear power development in Sweden is availability of own uranium ore deposits.

Swedish nuclear power is the most important power industry of the country, providing 40 to 50% of electric power generation. After a decision on abandonment of nuclear power and step-by-step closure of nuclear power plants that followed the results of 1980 referendum, the Swedish government repeatedly reinitiated discussion of this decision and reversed it in spring 2010.

29

Table 8. Swedish nuclear power plants

Reactor Operator Type MW – net Commercial operation Intended decommissioning

Oskarshamn 1 OKG BWR 473 Nineteen seventy two 2017-19

Oskarshamn 2 OKG BWR 638 Nineteen seventy four Closed in 2015

Oskarshamn 3 OKG BWR 1 400 1985 2035 or 2045

Ringhals 1 Vattenfall BWR 878 1976 2 020

Ringhals 2 Vattenfall PWR 807 +1975 2 019

Ringhals 3 Vattenfall PWR +1062 +1981 2 041

Ringhals 4 Vattenfall PWR 938 1983 2 043

Forsmark 1 Vattenfall BWR 984 1980 2 040

Forsmark 2 Vattenfall BWR 1120 +1981 2 041

Forsmark 3 Vattenfall BWR 1187 1985 2 045

Total (9), withoutOskarshamn 2

8849

Revised nuclear power legislation was approved by the parliament in June 2010 and became effective from January 1, 2011. The essence of adopted amendments is maintenance of the nuclear power for the foreseeable future and refusal from building new nuclear power plants with possibility of replacement and modernisation of already available power units, as well as giving access to the construction of new reactors and their operation to new owners by competitive bidding.

Wind power. In the period from 2008 more than 50 billion Swedish krona (about 7 billion Euros) was invested into the Swedish wind power sector. About 12 billion Swedish krona (about 1.8 billion Euros) of them was invested in 2012. 366 wind power generators were installed in addition to already existing 2036, and electric power production achieved 7.2 TW-h or 4.7%. Electric power production growth in the wind power sector was 19% (in the previous year it was 74%).

It was supposed that by 2013 Swedish wind power industry would break all records. Growth of installed capacities at the expense of new wind generators may achieve 939 MW and electric power production – approximately 11 TW-h. This is more than was produced by both reactors of previously closed Barsebäck Nuclear Power Plant in the southern Sweden. In general, wind power industry is growing at much faster rates than it was expected, and electric energy volume tripled during last three years.

Profitability of wind power investments attracted to this sector not only power companies, but also such timber processing groups as SCA and Holmen, large real estate companies, trade companies (IKEA), local self-government authorities and even private individuals through special cooperatives. Main role in this was played by the system of green certificates for electric power which became effective from 2003.

It should be noted that in recent years situation in this industry has substantially worsened. The reason is lowered prices for green certificates that enable subsidising of electric

30

energy production by means of renewable sources. In its turn, cheap green certificates are a result of fast increasing supply of electric power from renewable sources.

At the same time, wind power in Sweden is growing more actively than any other power sector. Since 2000 electric power generation at wind turbines in Sweden increased from 0.5 to 7.1 TW-h/year.

As an example, local authorities in Skellefteå consider applications for construction of 68 new wind turbines (WM) in Blåbergsliden and Ljusvattnet, as reported by regional newspaper the Norran. The municipality has already approved the site for WM placement, and it only remains to give a green signal to the plans of companies Holmen Energy (29 WMs) and FB Byggkonsult (39 WMs).

Vasterbotten holds a leading position in Barents region in RES-based electric power generation. According to information of Patchwork Barents , in 2013 RES provided 541 GW-h in Vasterbotten, which is almost twice as much as than the second region in the list – Finnish Lapland.

A free electric power market exists in Sweden from 1996. This means that the customer may select the electricity provider from among those that are present in the market. Market deregulation was carried out for the purpose of ensuring competition in the field of production and sale of electric power. At the same time transmission network remain in the state ownership, being a regulated monopoly.

Despite the available free market, actual customers’ choice of the electric power provider is very limited. About 80% of the volumes of electric power production and distribution are controlled by three largest Swedish companies – Vattenfal, Fortum and E.ON. The share of these companies in retail electric power sales is somewhat lower, but nevertheless, their market domination is undoubtful. Taking into consideration that all three of these companies are present in all regions of the country, often the consumers simply do not have any choice.

The main tool for electric power trading in Sweden, like in other countries of Northern Europe, is the NordPool exchange. The NordPool exchange is the main electric power pricing tool in Sweden. NordPool spot prices (prices for electric energy supply on the next day) are used as accounting prices both for deliveries to industrial consumers and in settlements with individual consumers. In recent years, electric power market functioning in Sweden has attracted sharp criticism on the part of power consumers, both in industry and among residential users. High electric power prices were the main reason for criticism.

Sweden introduced the certificate system for regulation of the market of electric power produced from renewable sources within common power system. This system enabled increase of electric power production from renewable sources and utilisation of this electric power in a more efficient way. From January 1, 2012 Sweden and Norway pooled their certificate markets into a common one. The main objective of this decision is to increase electric power production by 28.4 bln kW/h by 2020.

Electric power certification system mainly applies to renewable sources electric power producers, electric power providers, power-intensive industry sectors and certain electric power consumers. The right to receive a certificate is given to green power producers using wind energy, water power, some types of biofuel, solar energy, geothermal energy, wave energy and peat at thermal power plants.

5. Practice of promotion and regulation of RES utilisation in the EU countries

Promotion and regulation of enhanced RES utilisation in the EU countries is implemented in different ways. In any case, the national priority that may be treated as a political and economic quota system is defined first of all: with establishing long-term limits for development of own RES by their types both in terms of percentage to available energy sources and within timeframes. Then an implementation mechanism corresponding to technical and

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financial possibilities of the country is defined. Sources and schemes of financing for promotion of development of different RES types in the country are defined. As a part of development or limitation of each RES type, a relative share ratio of energy sources by their capacities is set. This process may be treated as a technical and economic quota system. For the purpose of its implementation flexible schemes and promotion methods are applied using preferential tariffs, differentiated tariffs with balance calculation between electric power consumption and production, certificates, auctions, tax concessions, subsidies, loans, grants, etc.

The most widespread tools for promotion of RES utilisation in the European countries are compensations (premiums) to tariffs for the power received from RES, tax exemption for a part of profit invested into alternative energy; exemption of clean energy consumers from ecological taxes; tenders and quotas (green certificates) for support of different RES types from a common special fund.

In the most countries, preference is given to the first one or first two of the aforesaid tools, although some countries (Austria, Belgium, etc.) use a wider range of incentives.

The most complex system of incentives for the RES is in Austria. In addition to main tools, such as compensations to the tariffs, tenders and green certificates, this system comprises different types of direct subsidies, preferential loans, tax rebates, etc. Each of nine Austrian regions (lands) apply nine different regulations that govern tariffs for the energy received from RES. There are significant regional differences in the tariffs for energy received from the same RES types (they achieve ratio of 32:1 for solar energy and 8:1 for biomass energy). Some European specialists assess the Austrian system of incentives for alternative RES as chaotic, deeming that simple systems with less number of regulatory authorities are more reasonable. As a rule, in this case they refer to the experience of Germany, Spain, and Denmark.

Being built on a minimum number of regulatory authorities, the RES promotion system in Germany, Spain, and Denmark is quite successful indeed. These countries are currently leaders in terms of wind power unit installed capacity: Germany — 12 GW, Spain — 4.8, Denmark — 2.9 GW. In recent years Germany also achieved a significant success in solar energy use.

The main RES promotion tool in these countries is compensations to the tariffs for energy received from RES. The essence of this tool is that the state supports clean energy purchasing prices at the level of real costs of its production by reimbursing the producers for increased expenditures.

However, it would be a mistake to believe that any single promotion tool has “natural” advantages. Finland and Greece that use tariff premiums as the main promotion lever have been much less successful in the development of wind power as compared to Germany or Spain, where this tool is also present in the promotion systems as the main one. In 2002 installed capacities in this sector were 0.3 GW in Greece and only 0.04 GW in Finland. This example demonstrates that effect of economic incentives may be nullified by other factors. Thus, stimulating effect of the compensations to the tariffs for energy from wind turbines in Greece is significantly reduced by administrative barriers and procedural complications of receiving licences for installation of these wind power units.

Successful functioning of compensations to the tariffs for energy from RES in Germany and Spain is related to the specifics of this tool in these countries. These specifics consist in giving the investors, at the stage of planning, the long-term guarantees (for 20 years in Germany and for 5 years in Spain) for energy purchasing at fixed prices, providing for compensation of increased expenditures.

The success of Spain in use of wind power is also connected to the requirements that are set for developers in this country: along with investments into wind power units, it is required to make obligatory additional investments into development of infrastructure or social sphere of the respective region. Additional financial expenditures that arise in this case are not burdensome to the investors, as demonstrated by Spanish statistics. At the same time this investment scheme

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enables significant diminution of resistance to construction of wind turbines on the part of the local population and regional environmental organisations.

Additional incentives in Germany and Denmark were also ensured as a result of giving the local population the right to participate in financing of wind power unit installation projects.

The alternative energy promotion system in Great Britain is built on tenders and allocation of quotas for support from a special fund to providers of different types of the clean energy. By doing so, the state ensures the same profitability, regardless of the RES type, to all the providers that received quotas (green certificates) for financial support as a result of a tender. The tender system and allocation of quotas for RES support from a special fund also exist in Austria, Belgium and Ireland.

In the Netherlands, the system of incentives for transition to RES is built on exemption from ecological taxes for the consumers of all types of the clean energy. Exemption from ecological taxes for the clean energy consumers is also practiced in France and Sweden.

Total installed capacities of Italian electric power plants amount to about 90 GW, with oil, gas and coal accounting to 21%, 42% and 9% respectively. For a long time the Italian power industry was based on hydro power plants, but their share has been reduced to 19% by now. Other installed capacities (9%) are represented by renewable energy sources: wind, sun, earth heat, waste biomass and plants biomass.

Nuclear power had also been developed in Italy, but in 1987, following the Chernobyl accident, Italians voted against nuclear power development at the nationwide referendum, and in 1990 the last nuclear reactor in Italy, which, by the way, was one of the founders of the nuclear industry, was stopped. In 2008 the Berlusconi government tried to breathe life into the nuclear topic, but the accident that happened at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima-1 on April, 2011 persuaded the public opinion against this idea again. In June 2011, 95% of the voters at the nationwide referendum voted against.

Italy holds the fourth place in the rating of major electric power consumers in Europe, following Germany, France and Great Britain. At the same time, it is the leader in the list of countries with the highest dependence on electric power import: Italy imports 90% of all resources. For this reason, development of alternative power industry is a strategic line of the development of the Italian power industry.

Projects of construction of new RES-based plants are implemented in Italy on the ground of tenders that are conducted with limitation of the number of lots that may be won by the same company.

Tables 9, 10 and 11 contain data on methods and tools that are applied for support of RES development, as well as on the sources of financing in the EU countries.

The analysis of these tables suggests the following. 1. The most active development of RES in the EU countries happened in ten recent

years.2. The most widespread promotion system is organised through increased tariffs. As a

rule, other additional incentive measures are also applied in this case.3. Applied systems are not permanent and adjusted depending on some or other technical

or economic priorities and possibilities. This is made for the purpose of increasing efficiency and cost-effectiveness of both different RES types and different power sectors in the country in general.

4. The system of allocation of quotas of obligations to acquire green energy is applied widely that provides an efficient system of tenders and green certificates

5. Promotion with the use of budget funds exists in two countries only – in Holland and Luxemburg. Other countries use extra-budgetary financing.

6. It is recognised in almost all EU countries that utilisation of RES in general and wind power in particular is an independent, mature and first-priority field of the power industry in these countries, with smooth aggregation into the existing power systems.

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Table 9. RES support tools

Support toolsAustria green tariffs, subsidiesBelgium balance calculation, quotas, subsidiesBulgaria green tariffs, credit, subsidiesCroatia green tariffs, loanCyprus premium, subsidiesCzech Republic green tariffs, loan, premium tariff, subsidiesDenmark loan, balance calculation, premium tariff, subsidiesEstonia premium tariff, subsidiesFinland premium tariff, subsidiesFrance green tariffs, tax regulation measuresGermany green tariffs, loan, premium tariffGreece green tariffs, subsidies (preferential credit), tax regulation measuresHungary green tariffs, subsidiesIreland green tariffs, tax regulation measuresItaly green tariffs, quotas, premium tariff, balance calculation, tax regulation measuresLatvia green tariffsLithuania green tariffs, credit, subsidies, tax regulation measuresLuxemburg green tariffs, subsidies, regulation mechanismMalta green tariffsNetherlands loans, balance calculation, premium tariff, subsidies, tax regulation measuresPoland quotas, tax regulation measuresPortugal green tariffsRomania quotas, subsidiesSlovakia green tariffs, subsidies, tax regulation measuresSlovenia green tariffs, borrowing, premium tariff, subsidiesSpain premium tariff, tax regulation measuresSweden quota system, subsidies, tax regulation measuresGreat Britain green tariffs, quota system, tax regulation measures

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Table 10. Use of tender system and sources of financing for main RES support schemes

Use of tenders: Financing (main part):Austria No Extra-budgetary fundingBelgium No extra-budgetary funding + budgetBulgaria No extra-budgetary fundingCroatia No extra-budgetary fundingCyprus YES extra-budgetary fundingCzech Republic No extra-budgetary fundingDenmark YES extra-budgetary fundingEstonia No extra-budgetary fundingFinland No extra-budgetary fundingFrance YES extra-budgetary fundingGermany YES extra-budgetary fundingGreece No extra-budgetary fundingHungary No extra-budgetary fundingIreland No extra-budgetary fundingItaly YES extra-budgetary fundingLatvia No extra-budgetary fundingLithuania No extra-budgetary fundingLuxembourg No budgetMalta No extra-budgetary fundingNetherlands YES budgetPoland No extra-budgetary fundingPortugal YES extra-budgetary fundingRomania No extra-budgetary fundingSlovakia No extra-budgetary fundingSlovenia YES extra-budgetary fundingSpain No extra-budgetary fundingSweden No extra-budgetary fundingGreat Britain No extra-budgetary funding

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Table 11. Main economic incentives for development of alternative power industry in the EU countries

Form (tool) of economic incentive Countries using this incentiveCompensations to the tariffs Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Greece,

Denmark, Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Finland, France, Sweden

Tenders and green certificates Austria, Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, France, Sweden

Exemption from ecological taxes Austria, Great Britain, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia

Exemption from ecological taxes invested into alternative types of energy sources

Hungary, Netherlands, France, Sweden

Compensations to the tariffs from a special fund formed from selling emissions quotas

Austria, Hungary, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden

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6. The course of development of the wind power as a part of RES in Belarus

Unfortunately, at this time wind power in Belarus has not formed as a power industry sector yet. In the territory of Belarus, there is one new working WM, with capacity of 1.5 MW, that was produced in the People’s Republic of China and is owned by Belenergo, as well as about forty lower capacity WMs that have mainly worked for about 10 years in other countries and that are owned by natural and legal persons.

Their operation experience is different. Two WM that were installed (and they were installed newly made) in the village of Zanaroch, Miadel district have the greatest operation time (over 10 years). Data of their operation indicate an acceptable capacity factor which is not less than in other countries with developed power industry.

It should be noted that in the almost all RES-based facilities in the Republic of Belarus were built at the expense of extra-budgetary investments, including at the expense of direct foreign investments attracted on a net basis. This fact indicates that investors are very interested in construction of these power facilities, including wind farms. At this moment, the Republic of Belarus may offer the investor a sufficient amount of qualified service and works for the project support, starting from selection of a site for placement of a RES power facility to commissioning of the facility and its registration as a real property item.

Great attention is paid to development of wind power and all renewable energy sources in our country. This is provided for by Directive No. 3 of the President of Belarus dated June 14, 2007 for the purpose of energy security of the country. The Strategy for Development of Energy Potential in the Republic of Belarus approved by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus under No. 1180 on 09.08.2010 specified that “1 840 sites for placement of wind turbines with theoretically possible energy potential of over 1 600 MW were found in the territory of the Republic. In 2009 overall installed capacity of wind turbines was 1.2 MW with substitution volume of 0.4 thousand tonnes of fuel oil equivalent. In general, wind farms with overall capacity up to 300 MW may be built in the period from 2011 to 2015”. Taking into consideration the experience of recent years, as well as rates achieved in the neighbouring states, this figure may be accepted as the minimum objective for Belarus for the most immediate future. In this case the share of electrical power generation by RES in the total balance will amount to less than 2%.

Achievement of this capacity will initiate creation of the wind power as a system. But in order to do this, it is required to overcome barriers that have impact analysed in the first sections. The experience accumulated by other states and summarised in the document “Commission Staff Working Document. European Commission Guidance for the Design of Renewables Support Schemes” SWD(2013) 439 final, Brussels, 5.11.2013 may be required for this purpose. The experience of all countries participating in the project Energy 2020 is summarised and given here.

1. Thus, it may be regarded that the main barrier in our country is absence of an autoregulated and self-sufficient system of RES use, where proved methods of electric power generation by RES would operate successfully without any subsidised mechanisms, while preferences would apply to new technologies that have not been well tried yet.

2. Much was done to overcome barriers of obtaining various permits related to placement of wind turbines, but due to tie-in to selection of the best place for WM placement, it remains overlong, especially in case of WM placement on lands used in agriculture.

3. There are great complications related to obtaining a permit for connection to transmission facilities without additional expenditure for construction of electrical infrastructure.

4. High cost of new wind turbines, linked with other barriers, increases the payback period. Utilisation of used mills seems more attractive at this stage.

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5. This is also relevant for an obscure situation with operation of mills after 20 years. There is no proved mechanism for replacement of an old mill with a new one with receiving the highest possible electric power price again.

6. Deficit of organisational and technical experience in the regions, as there is no experience of large-scale use of wind.

7. Imperfect and inflexible tariff policy system relating to all RES, and WMs in particular. The effective tariff and quota system, which should has been aimed at attraction of investments, especially from national economic agents, and possibly from natural persons (as one of alternatives to bank deposit) scarcely takes into consideration the main interest of the investor: repay investments with maximum profitability and moderate or minimum return on investment at the first stage, have acceptable return on investment and possibility for investment reproduction at the second stage.

8. One of the main reasons – financing of tariff preferences for RES is assigned to Belenergo State Production Association which is inherently not interested in doing this. In this case the state interest in diversification of energy sources, implementation of public programmes with attraction of extra-budgetary financing, etc. is substituted by momentary corporate interest of one state structure.

9. It should be recognised, honestly and reasonably, that all expenses for preferences in the field of RES in general and WMs in particular are covered by electric power consumers.

10. Apprehensions about working capacity and durability of imported equipment in the almost complete absence of own products applicable for implementation of RES projects, and WMs in particular.

11. Absence of WM service centres and complete absence of financial mechanisms for creation of own service centres.

12. Absence of mechanisms or rules for selling electricity from the producer to the consumer under direct supply contracts using the distribution network of Belenergo State Production Association.

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CONCLUSION

Wind power has been developed dynamically all over the world. The average annual growth of WM capacity in the EU countries is about 10%. In order to accelerate development of wind power, all EU countries apply various tools and support measures contributing to increased electric power generation by RES.

There is no conflict between nuclear power plants and development of wind power in any country where nuclear power plants are present in the structure of power systems. They are developed simultaneously and hold their particular place in the structure of power systems.

With the current low number of WMs installed in Belarus (as compared to the power system capacity and their dispersion over the country’s territory, there is no negative technical impact on reliability and stability of the power system operation. Taking into consideration the experience of recent years, favourable investment climate in our republic, as well as the rates achieved in the neighbouring states, it may be accepted that WM capacity of 300 MW approved in the Strategy for Development of Energy Potential in the Republic of Belarus approved by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus under No. 1180 on 09.08.2010 may be recognised as the minimum objective for Belarus for the most immediate future. In this case the share of electrical power generation by RES in the total balance will amount to less than 2%.

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