Solar and Wind Power as Natural Resource: Legal Theory and Practice of Use of Renewable Energy Sources (View from Russia)

Abstract

Use of solar and wind power as a variety of renewable energy sources is one of the types of environmental entrepreneurship. Currently, this area of power engineering is booming in the states of the European Union, China and the United States. The authors of this article explore the reasons for insufficient development of alternative power engineering in Russia. Based on the legal traditions of the post-Soviet states, they suggest consideration of solar and wind power as natural resource that is not private or public property, but heritage of the people of these countries. The article presents analysis of activities in the USA and the EU states aimed to obtain electric power from renewable energy sources. The authors suggest a range of administrative and urban planning activities providing conditions for development of this economy sector in the republics of the former Soviet Union. Moreover, the authors suggest measures for development of law of neighboring tenements, which is insufficiently developed in many countries of the former USSR; the presence of these measures can resolve power disputes between owners.