New State energy efficiency program
During his visit to Tatarstan President Dmitry Medvedev noted that the state energy program has a key importance for modernization of the economy and social sphere in Russia, Kremlin.ru reads. Last year Russia adopted a new federal law on energy saving and energy efficiency.
Federal support to regional programs
The Russian regions have had to prepare their own energy efficiency programs, which were to be ready before the end of summer 2010. The President noted that he and his experts are not fully satisfied with the quality of these regional programs but said that the best of them will be co-financed by the federal authorities, Kommersant.ru reports.
The federal input in the regional programs will amount to RUB 17 billion rubles or around € 400 million during the next three years. The total federal investments in this 10-years energy efficiency program are estimated to RUB 135 billion while the federation subjects should find another 625 billion.
Cross-border cooperation for energy efficiency in Russia
The low quality of the regional energy efficiency programs mentioned by the Presidential Commission on Modernization and Technological Development is obviously explained by the lack of competence of the local experts and high need for new technologies in this sphere. This competence is definitely wished to be borrowed from abroad as well as technologies and investments. In this relation the existing tools of cross-border cooperation present a very good possibility for transfer of foreign technologies and competence to the Russian market. And the Russian regions want to use this possibility.
In the Barents region, for example, the network of energy efficiency centers established in the end of the 1990’ies covers all territories involved in the cooperation. The Barents Working Group on Energy is a good example of international cross-border cooperation in this field.
One of the new examples of such cooperation is the Russian-Norwegian round table on energy efficiency which is to be held in Arkhangelsk on November 16 this year. The event is initiated by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry and the General Consulate of Norway in Murmansk in cooperation with the Arkhangelsk regional government. It is expected that leading Norwegian companies which possess a good expertise in this field will take part in this event. The round table will be opened by the State Secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry Ms. Rikke Lind.
