The Governor of the Ulyanovsk region Sergey Morozov, RUSNANO Managing Director of Investment Activity Sergey Vakhterov, the CEO of the National Engineering Center of Energy Ivan Ivanov and the Director of AIRR Ivan Fedotov participated in the event.
According to Sergey Morozov, under RUSNANO patronage and with the assistance of Asian and European partners the construction of the first wind farm in the country is conducted in the region. The investor of this project is the international company Fortum. The first stage development of the project will be opened in the second half of 2017. “Implementation of this project will give a chance to create an essentially new economy in the Ulyanovsk region and to considerably increase the number of working places. Now the company has taken to its building site, preparatory works for equipment installation are being carried out”, − informed Sergey Morozov.
Besides, the Government of the region is conducting negotiations and studies some preliminary decisions on the projects of localization of blades and towers in the Ulyanovsk region. “So far I can tell you only this: Both large Russian companies and the foreign ones are interested”, - highlighted the Head of the region.
“Each region if it seeks to develop, in case the head of the subject is ready to pay his personal attention to the projects, will be successful in any aspect irrespective of the field of activity. All these components are present in the Ulyanovsk region”, − added Ivan Fedotov.
Sergey Morozov shared the details about the staff training for the new branch. “We are rather poor in natural resources, in minerals. Therefore, long ago we understood that there is only one way of development – whatever is connected with intelligence and with creation of high-performance economy. Today at the Ulyanovsk Technical University the preparation for opening of the Department of Wind Power Technologies is already ongoing, its graduates will use the alternative sources of electric energy generation. The higher education institution will accept its applicants for the new specialty right from the start of a new academic year”, − reported Sergey Morozov.
Experts say that renewable energy resources remain the most fast-growing type of energy carriers. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2015 the total amount of the electric power worked out by means of renewables grew by 1,2%. At the same time the most rapid-growing resources of alternative energy are solar batteries and onshore wind farms. According to the report published by the Environment Defence Fund (EDF), the number of jobs in solar and wind power engineering increases approximately by 20% a year. Besides, a profound interest of investors is attracted to the projects on development of alternative energy sources.
As Ivan Fedotov remarked, the development of alternative power engineering is a universal trend. “According to the International Analytical Agency, the total number of investments into the renewable energy resources in 2015 made 286 billion dollars, of them the share of BRICS countries was equal to 156 billion dollars”, − emphasized the Director of AIRR.
Thus, more and more Russian regions are getting locally involved in the implementation of similar projects. Russia has the greatest wind potential and it ranks number one in the Global Wind Atlas. Existing wind potential allows generating 140 thousand terawatt*hour a year. One of the leaders in this area is the Ulyanovsk region implementing the projects on wind power generation.