Russia’s cumulative renewable power capacity is forecast to nearly double over the next decade, rising from 9.8GW in 2025 to 18.4GW by 2035, according to GlobalData projections.
That represents a compound annual growth rate of approximately 6.5%, a figure that looks credible on paper but tells a more nuanced story when set against the scale of Russia’s overall power system and the structural logic driving the expansion.
The headline number should be read carefully. Russia’s gas-fired capacity alone stands at 143.5GW in 2025 and is projected to reach approximately 151.2GW by 2035. Nuclear capacity adds another 26.8GW in 2025, growing to 28.6GW over the same period. Against that backdrop, 18.4GW of renewables by 2035 represents a meaningful absolute addition but a modest share of total installed capacity. This is not a system undergoing decarbonization in any conventional sense. It is a system adding renewable capacity at the margins while reinforcing conventional and nuclear generation as the structural foundation of supply security.
The mechanism driving renewable expansion is the Capacity Supply Agreement framework for renewable energy, known as CSA RES, which provides wind and solar projects with fixed capacity payments for periods of up to 15 years within Russia’s Wholesale Electricity and Capacity Market. The structure eliminates wholesale price exposure for selected projects and provides the kind of long-term revenue predictability that, in most markets, requires either a power purchase agreement with a creditworthy offtaker or a government contract for difference. In Russia’s case, the state is effectively the counterparty, which simplifies project financing while also concentrating decision-making authority over which projects proceed and at what volume.
Onshore wind is the primary growth vector, with capacity projected to increase from 4.3GW in 2025 to 10.2GW by 2035. Solar PV follows a shallower trajectory, moving from 3.1GW to 5.3GW over the same period, concentrated in utility-scale installations across southern and eastern regions where irradiation levels and existing grid infrastructure are most favorable. The Volga region and parts of eastern Russia feature prominently in deployment geography, a pattern consistent with where the resource case is strongest rather than where demand centers are located, which raises questions about transmission adequacy that the available data does not fully resolve.
What distinguishes Russia’s renewable program from counterpart markets is the explicit integration of domestic manufacturing requirements into the auction framework. Localization requirements embedded in CSA RES auction rounds have been used to develop local turbine assembly capacity and solar module production. This places Russia’s renewable buildout closer to an industrial policy instrument than a climate or least-cost energy procurement exercise. The goal is not primarily to minimize the cost of new generation or reduce carbon intensity, but to develop domestic supply chain capabilities that reduce import dependence, a logic that has parallels in China’s early renewable policy architecture, though operating at considerably smaller scale and under different market conditions.
The CSA RES 2.0 auction rounds and their stricter localization requirements represent the next phase of this approach. GlobalData’s Mohammed Ziauddin notes that volume will remain controlled and capacity additions structured, with priority given to domestic manufacturing development and selected regional deployment. That framing confirms that Russia’s renewable program operates on an administered rather than competitive logic, where the state determines the pace and geography of expansion based on industrial objectives rather than market signals.
Thermal generation’s continued dominance, and specifically natural gas, reflects both resource endowment and systemic risk management. Russia holds the world’s largest proven natural gas reserves, and gas-fired capacity underpins baseload supply in a system that experiences extreme seasonal demand variation. The projected increase in gas capacity from 143.5GW to 151.2GW through 2035 signals that planners are not treating renewable additions as displacement of conventional generation but as supplementary capacity layered onto an expanding conventional base. Coal capacity is expected to gradually decline over the forecast period, though the pace and policy mechanisms driving that reduction are not specified in the available data.
Nuclear power’s trajectory deserves separate consideration. The projected increase from 26.8GW to 28.6GW by 2035 reflects Rosatom’s continued domestic deployment program alongside its more commercially visible international reactor export business. Nuclear occupies a strategic position in Russian energy planning that goes beyond supply economics, serving as both a domestic low-carbon baseload source and a demonstration platform for export diplomacy. Its continued expansion alongside renewables reinforces the conclusion that Russia’s energy system evolution through 2035 will be characterized by capacity addition across multiple technology categories rather than structural reorientation of the generation mix.
The geopolitical context surrounding Russia’s energy sector following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions adds a layer of uncertainty to any forecast extending to 2035. Equipment supply chains, financing access, and technology partnerships have all been disrupted to varying degrees, and the localization requirements embedded in CSA RES auctions partly reflect a policy adaptation to reduced access to Western turbine and module manufacturers. How effectively Russian domestic manufacturing scales to meet the projected deployment volumes, particularly for wind turbines, will be a material determinant of whether the 18.4GW forecast is realized on schedule.
