Still Waiting for a Great Step in Russia

In Russia, renewable energy did not make big strides in 2010. Even though locally, smaller-scale projects started appearing in Russian regions last year, in sum total, the share of alternative energy in Russia's energy market remained, as before, at a level of one percent. The Russian energy strategy aims to increase that share to 4.5 percent by 2020. That means the actual task of promoting alternative energy nationally has been set by the Russian government – but does the state provide for necessary mechanisms to support the effort?