The Arctic is a specific geographical region with extreme climate conditions, vulnerable environment, but rather intensive ongoing industrialization. The Arctic requires alternative solutions to provide energy supply to the energy consumers due to the growing energy demand and small-scale decentralized character of energy supply. At the moment, the largest part of energy consumption in the region is covered by hydrocarbon energy resources delivered from the mainland. Renewable energy technologies may be efficiently implemented to cover the needs of small scale decentralized energy consumers in the Russian Arctic, but at the moment they are applied on a very modest scale. The current study analyses and discusses the main challenges and risks related to renewable energy resources use in the Russian Arctic. Further, the study elaborates on the issues related to the environmental challenges and climate change-related threats, their relationship and influence on the technological choices of the future energy supply in the region, addressing the perspectives of sustainable development of the Russian Arctic.

The problems of optimising the placement of photovoltaic panels to ensure the most stable power generation are considered. Method for assessing the risks of solar power plants operation instability in the based on taking into account the climatic characteristics of the variability of the insolation and snow cover using GIS technologies is presented. This approach is especially important for Russia, a country with a wide variety of natural and climatic conditions. To test this technique, we calculated the intra-annual and year-to year variation of the statistical characteristics of the total insolation incident for regions of Russia. The use of GIS technologies made it possible to assess the distribution of the features of the variability of solar radiation over the area. This paper presents the results of calculations and constructed maps for the Republic of Altai, the region of Russia with heterogeneous insolation conditions, where solar energy has been actively developing recent years. In these territories, zones with the lowest indicators of variability in the input of solar radiation have been identified where a high level of stability of electricity generation on photovoltaic power plants can be predicted.

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The analysis of the main directions of renewable energy in Africa, as a factor in sustainable development and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is performed. The ecological problems of the modern and prospective development of the energy complex of African countries are considered. For African countries the issue of ensuring reliable and environmentally friendly access to electricity for the population is extremely acute. It is shown, that the electricity demand for industry in Sub-Saharan Africa the most problematic region is growing on a very large scale. The construction of new large coal-fired thermal power plants in the required volumes will lead to serious environmental and climatic consequences. The study of regional data allowed us to conclude that PV solar systems are of priority importance for increasing people’s access to electricity in rural SubSaharan Africa. Based on numerous materials from international energy structures the estimates and calculations of volumes of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to the use of renewable energy sources as an alternative to carbon fuel are carried out. The study has shown that of particularly great importance for reducing CO2 emissions in Kenya is the development of geothermal energy.