ИСТИНА

In many countries of the world renewable energy (RE) has already become a dynamically developing branch of energy generation, mechanical engineering, fundamental and applied sciences, equipment and technology. Thus the main purpose of RE development is finally ensuring access for consumers to energy, diversification of energy sources, consolidation of energy security in regions and states. The consumer, both at the level of government and at the level of the end-user, first of all needs extensive and diverse information about: technical means, renewable energy resources, economic aspects (profitability and equipment payback period), experience of development and use of power supply systems on renewable energy sources and installed objects working on RE. Due to this fact the process of developing and providing the consumer with various information resources was started in many countries: at first it was printed products, later it became digital, including access to the Internet. Owing to great value of the geographical aspect during work with data files in the field of RE, geoinformation (GIS) technologies are actively used. These resources are provided both on commercial basis, and in open access. The assessment of renewable energy resources in Russia, were certainly carried out long before the emergence of modern mapping means and data analysis. Nevertheless now there is a question not only in general estimates, but also more exact local data on the renewable energy sources corresponding to inquiries of experts in the field of power plant design, development of data acquisition regulations and their accuracy. The advantage of using GIS-technologies and the need for cooperation of experts from such fields as physics, technics and geography is obvious. The project “Geoinformation system “Renewable energy sources of Russia” (http://www.gis-vie.ru/) which was carried out by the Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Joint Institute of High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences within the Scientific and educational center “Renewable energy sources” became the basis for formatting and working out approaches and methods of assessing different types of renewable energy sources, and also aggregating all actual information in the field of renewable energy of Russia. In this project the structure, the chosen approaches to an assessment and mapping of resources of solar, wind energy, and also the problem of determination of small hydropower potential connected with the shortage of hydrological data is presented. The assessment of renewable energy resources at the regional level, as well as features of renewable energy development in Russia, an overview of regional experience, policies and targets are presented. The chosen data sources, their verification and hierarchy of data by their completeness, availability and adequacy to problems of an assessment of resources of renewable energy are discussed.