RENEWABLE ENERGY IN KYRGYZSTAN: STATE, POLICY AND EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

摘要

Every year the renewable energy topic becomes more important. Kyrgyzstan, a small country in Central Asia, also attempts to develop green, environmental sources of energy. While the promotion of renewable energy in developed countries is considered as an additional energy source and simultaneously a "tool" for environmental protection, then in Kyrgyzstan as a developing country, it should be recognized firstly as a solution to the social problems. This paper presents the current situation of the renewable energy sector, including legislation, as well as academic education on "renewable energy". Kyrgyzstan has a large hydropower potential due to the landscape features, but only 10% of this water amount potential is used today. Utilization of energy from biomass as well as from solar energy is in an "embryo" stage, even though Kyrgyzstan is an agrarian country and has good solar radiation potential. The geothermal resources have good treatment properties, therefore they are successfully used mainly in health resorts and not for the extraction of thermal energy. Some examples will be presented in this paper. The influence on renewable energy market formation comes also from universities, where specialists are educated and trained. The universities in turn depend on the market demands. There are four universities in Kyrgyzstan that offer a specialization in renewable energies, particularly Kyrgyz State Technical University, Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, Kyrgyz-Uzbek University and Kyrgyz State University of Construction, Transport and Architecture. Some of these institutions cooperate with international scientists on projects and research, and these collaborations will also partly be revealed in this work. A crucial element in the development and promotion of renewable energy sources (RES) should be the government, which creates favorable conditions using legislative acts. Kyrgyzstan is the first country in Central Asia, which has ratified a "renewable energy law" in 2008. It presents only the general principles for regulation of RES (the so-called "framework law") and therefore differs from Feed-in Tariff or Quote Model. It is necessary to continue the harmonization and agreement processes of this legislation with other juridical acts. Particularly, the preferences of this law should also be reflected within the law codes, legislative and by-laws. Two years ago the Kyrgyz government has signed a resolution on "The order of building, acceptance and technological connection of small hydro-power stations to power grid", thereby creating the legislative platform for all the beneficiaries. A few examples of legislative acts content will be analyzed and presented in this paper. Besides some conclusions, the challenges for the development of renewable energy will be discussed at the end of this paperwork. Among them are knowledge capacity, legislative base and specific obstacle as tariff policy (1kWh electricity = 0,0157 $, 1kWh Gas = 0,0355 $).