The article presents the history of the department since its creation in 1935 until the present time and reports on the department participation in the development of hydropower and renewable energy in the country, specialist training in these areas for the Russian Federation and other countries. Particular attention is paid to the scientific activities of the department, the development of laboratory facilities and methodological equipment of the laboratory, improvement to the educational process, the department interaction with leading companies in the country. This article points out that the department takes into account the trends of energy development of the country in its research and teaching activities. Thus it has assimilated a new direction – renewable energy sources,  and participated actively in its formation.

Design and development of photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) modules is currently one of the important directions of solar energy application. These projects are aimed at increasing the effectiveness of solar energy conversion through combining electric and thermal energy generation in one device by decreasing solar energy losses and consequently decreasing energy generation costs. The paper discusses the new PV-T modules, including photoreceiver and solar illumination concentrator which provides efficient conversion of solar energy into heat and electricity. The mathematical modeling is used to create an algorithm for calculating of PV-T module design with the specified energy parameters. The laws of geometrical optics, photovoltaics, as well as heat and mass transfer are used. Such modules, based on a symmetrical parabolic-cylindrical concentrator and a photoreceiver with a coolant system flow may serve as a cogeneration installation for electricity and heat generation. Developed solar prototypes were investigated at testing ground and in field conditions with sun illumination. Solar module with asymmetric parabolic-cylindric concentrator with the midsection area 66х70 cm²and concentrated radiation photoreceiver on the basis of 6x68 cm²area matrix solar cells, with the flow coolant system provides 27 electrical powerwatts. The calculation of optic efficiency results in 0,64, which is not the limit for this concentrator module construction; and the comparison of photoelectric energy received from this module and a standard planar solar battery with the same area and equal effectiveness of photoconverters during the period between winter and summer solstice gives an increase of 26%. Increasing the optic efficiency up to 80%, which is realistic at current technologic reserves, this increase can reach 50%.

In the Republic of Venezuela, the government adopted a development program of power supply of the population on the basis of solar energy use. Therefore an urgent task is to determine the structure and parameters of scheme of power supply, and also to evaluate the efficiency of use of different types of solar modules for the conditions of the country. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of silicon solar modules and solar modules with a holographic concentrator, each with and without water cooling systems, in the operational conditions of the area Alta Guajira in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The paper presents the study results of the effect of the cooling system on the characteristics of the holographic and conventional solar module.

The paper analyzes the schedules of the electric load to the different consumers depending on their level of life, and the parameters of the elements of heat and power supply based on schemes of the solar energy use concerning the adopted Venezuela’s government program of development of power supply on the basis of solar energy. In addition, it stresses the importance of a problem of power supply of independent consumers in remote areas of Venezuela. Moreover the paper presents a comparison of the technical parameters of schemes of power supply using different types of solar modules for the conditions of the Alta Guajira area in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and examines the use of vacuum solar collectors for hot water supply consumers.

The article describes a model for calculating capacity of a flat-plate solar collector with natural circulation of heat-transfer fluid, depending on the basic constructive, thermal and climatological parameters. This article estimates energy and exergy efficiency of the system for the conditions of the Ural region as well. The proposed method can be used for quantitative and qualitative assessment of power and exergy generation by the flat-plate solar collector with natural circulation of heat-transfer fluid on the basis of publicly available data for any region.

The paper analyzes the wind speed profile models at the Far Eastern Federal District (FEFD), obtained according to actual observations at sites 7 wind measurement complexes (WMC), and gives their comparison with the wind speed profile models obtained by the authors of this paper on the long-term data of aerological stations (AS). The example of wind power plant, part of the local energy system of village Novikovo in Sakhalin region, shows the influence of the determination accuracy Hellman coefficient wind speed profile on the wind energy characteristics and local energy system operation modes.

This paper describes the autonomous power supply of the Marine Local Differential Subsystem (LDSS) of global navigation satellite systems GLONASS and GPS on the base of wind turbine (WT), equipped with energy storage system. The paper shows the parameters of LDSS and WT and justifies the necessity and reasonability of reclamation of North Russian regions, building a local energy generating systems for electric supply for distributed consumers. Field testing of vertical axis wind turbines was made in Arctic conditions.

One of the main obstacles for more widespread introduction of heat pumps to the sphere of heat supply is the high cost of systems on their basis. The paper considers the measures capable to reduce cost and to increase efficiency of the heat pump installations using warmth of surface water, first of all warmth of watercourses, due to improvement of selection methods of low-grade heat from the water environment. The paper gives the example of a design of the submersible water-brine heat exchanger designed according to the described measures and recommendations about a choice of optimum medium of a low-temperature contour. 

The paper investigates the transformation of thermal energy to mechanical work on pumping of liquid at steam formation in narrow vertical channels. Feature of boiling up of liquid in narrow channels is formation of the steam shells which are completely blocking the cross section of the channel and pushing out liquid from it. There is a fluctuation mode of vaporizing and condensation processes at a constant supply of thermal energy. The model of rod emission is used for the description of that processes. This paper carries out the pilot studies of pressure variation in the channel during the operation of the mechanical heat pump and experimentally defines the dependences of flow rate of liquid on its temperature, the input power and pressure. The physical model of pump operation is developed, its characteristics are constructed. The thermomechanical pump can find application for increase of technological process efficiency in those areas of equipment where pumping of liquid with rather small expense is necessary and there is a large number of waste thermal energy.

The paper shows that the fast growth and implementation of renewable energy systems require complex analysis for such systems composition and components taking into account the climatic region conditions of application. The problem is particularly urgent because of the significant differences of climatic conditions in the Russian Federation regions. The fact that operating temperature regimes are not taken into consideration in the design of power plants, in some cases leads to efficiency loss of power plants and reduce warranty of consumer power supply. The energy storage devices used in power plants are the most sensitive to temperature regimes. This paper analyses the high and low operation temperature influence on different electric energy storage devices parameters of autonomous PV light and signal units as renewable energy systems containing energy storage devices. Such power plants usually don’t have resources for additional accumulator heating/cooling, therefore the correct choice of storage device is quite crucial in this case.

The paper deals with the development of electric charging stations network for electric vehicles, operated both the power grid and renewable energy sources (RES), which is carried out fairly rapidly in the world today. In Russia only mains-operated charging stations have spread so far. Moreover this paper discusses the results of investigation on efficiency of hybrid energy complexes based on RES, including different types of charging stations, in Russia.

This article expounds an innovative technology for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) based on solar thermal plant. First of all the authors dwell on the problem of the replacement of conventional steam generators operating with fossil fuels by the solar field of parabolic trough concentrators. Then they discuss the impact of intermittent steam injection on overall efficiency of oil production, related to the cyclical nature of the incoming solar energy. Next they analyze the optical and thermal losses in parabolic trough concentrator. The purpose of this article is to show the possibility of using the vast potential of solar energy in Venezuela in order to produce steam with parabolic trough concentrator solar plant.

The article discusses the possibility of the use of solar energy technologies meeting the requirements of Steam Based Enhanced Oil Recovery and describes the methods of obtaining parameters of solar steam plant with parabolic trough concentrator considering day steam injection. In order to study standard oil deposit where is used continuous steam injection method in accordance with the solar radiation characteristic for the Bachaquero region of the Republic of Venezuela, the type and orientation of parabolic trough collector, the type and temperature of the working fluid were chosen, the total number of parabolic trough concentrators was calculated.

The article presents the research of spectral properties of Fe²⁺, Co²⁺ and Ni²⁺ ion energy structure in semiconductor materials А^IIВ^VI ( ZnO, ZnS, ZnSe, ZnTe, CdO, CdS, CdSe, CdTe) and the ratio of these spectral structures of absorption and luminescence transitions with band gap of materials А^IIВ^VI. This article evaluates the possibility of obtaining laser action on these materials in 1.5–3 microns range, as optic fiber data lines have a transparency window in that range. The results are valuable for various other applications of tunable semiconductor lasers.

The article considers the using of hybrid power complexes in insulated  energetic systems of the Tyumen region. Moreover the article determines the power complex structure and its optimization. It is noted that the change in the composition of HES by entering into its structure electric power battery and heat battery can increase the reliability of heat and electricity consumers, and also to reduce the installed capacity of guaranteeing power supply. It is planned to consider the possibility of use a guaranteed source of power generating plants operating on local fuels, such as solid fuel boilers (pellets, wood chips).