The use of renewable energy sources will help to solve some existing problems of energy supply. It will provide the organization of energy production in place of its consumption, increase reliability of power supply to remote consumers, improve the ecological environment, provide remote nomadic settlements with electricity, work settlements of geologists and oil workers who don’t have access to the power grid.
During the recent years, Kazakhstan has been positioning the renewable ener-gy sources (RES) as one of the energy complex vectors. this is evidenced by the increased attention paid to the process of their implementation by the government and a number of business structures. however, the formation of a stable complex of the renewable energy sources in Kazakhstan stipulates signifcant fnancial and technological investments with the direct involvement of the government, without which the renewable energy remains at virtual zero.
The Renewable Resources. Kazakhstan possesses suffciently large potential of renewable energy resources. For example, according to several studies, the gross hydro-potential of the Republic of Kazakhstan is roughly estimated at 170 billion kWh/year, technically possible to implement is 62 billion (economic - 29 billion, of them in use are 7.4 billion kWh/year). To date, the share of HES in the structure of generating capacities of Kazakhstan is only about 12.3%. This fgure is signifcant-ly lagging behind the developed countries. Moreover, 68% of the hydroelectric power generating facilities have worked for over 30 years. The implementation of several largest HES projects will bring certain progress in the next few years: Moinak HES with the installed capacity of 300 MW, Kerbulak HES of 49.5 MW, Bulak HES of 68.25 MW. Despite the considerable potential for the development of large HES, Kazakhstan may well learn from the development of mini-hydro power stations, which were partially tested in the Soviet period. It is indicative that...