Executive Summary of Evaluation
Name of Evaluation                              Mid-Term Evaluation of Russia Renewable Energy Program
Date of Final Report of Evaluation              June 27, 2012
Author of Final Report of Evaluation            ICON-INSTITUTE GmbH & Co. KG Consulting Gruppe
Date of this Executive Summary                  June 5, 2014
Author of this Executive Summary                Luis Domenech, IFC-CDI, ldomenech@ifc.org
Number of pages of this Executive Summary       3
Modifications from original Executive Summary   No deletions. Minor grammatical corrections
Executive Summary Approved for public           Anna Hidalgo, IFC-Public Affairs Department,
disclosure by (name) on (date)                  AHidalgo@worldbankgroup.org


The Russia Renewable Energy Program (RREP) was launched by the International Finance Corporation
(IFC) in 2010 with the overall environment goal to create a framework for reducing GHG emissions on a
continuous basis by overcoming the barriers to the development of renewable energy (RE) in Russia. The
overall development goal is to facilitate a sustainable market for RE in the country by supporting the
development of market infrastructure and enabling policies at the regional level, thereby unlocking
opportunities for private sector financing.

By the end of 2011, a revision of the original strategy was initiated and approved. In April 2012, the
ICON-INSTITUTE GmbH & Co. KG Consulting Gruppe was commissioned by the Program’s management
to assess the performance and impact of the Program’s operations and management. The evaluation
team also assessed the relevance of the Program’s revised strategy against the status of the renewable
energy environment in the Russian Federation in order to achieve the desired impact: the development
of market infrastructure, regional incentive schemes and RE financing by local financial institutions. The
Executive Summary presented an overview of the findings as well as the main recommendations to
enable mid-course programmatic improvements.

It was the evaluation team’s conclusion that RREP was operating in a contradictory environment. On the
one hand, renewable energy stood high on the political agenda and targets had been formulated to
promote the development of energy generation from renewable sources. On the other hand, federal
agencies dealing with RE legislation and infrastructure development were not moving forward.
International agencies like IFC were perceived as being supportive in terms of providing external
expertise and the provision of analytical support, but when it came to practical implementation any
interference by international agencies was not appreciated. As a consequence, federal agencies neither
consulted the relevant stakeholders nor succeeded in developing the needed legislation or
infrastructure.

In order to build the base for achieving the desired impact, RREP carried out numerous public outreach
activities and reached a broad community interested in the topic during the earlier stage of its
implementation. RREP created the necessary awareness about the topic and succeeded in gaining the
interest of some regional stakeholders to pursue the topic further. The first part of the project paved the

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way for the second stage, which called for the practical implementation of RE demonstration sites in
pilot regions. The increased interest in the topic on the regional level and the readiness to invest efforts
into RE, demonstrated by potential pilot regions of the Program, can be attributed to the additionality of
the first phase of RREP.

The revision of RREP’s strategy with the shift of its focus to the regional level was considered sensible
and promising. Although federal stakeholders who had been interviewed indicated skepticism about this
approach, as legislation and infrastructure development had to come from the federal level according to
their point of view, stakeholders from the regional level were very committed to RREP’s interventions.
They supported the initiative to create demonstration sites in the regions which could illustrate the
feasibility of RE, but also underlined the additional need for RE legislation and infrastructure. Regional
stakeholders were of the opinion that regions can influence the decisions made on the federal level, for
example through the Federation Council of Russia. However, whether this bottom-up approach really
fostered the necessary legislation on the federal level remains to be seen; therefore, it was concluded
that RREP should maintain its cooperation with both levels simultaneously.

The selection criteria that were applied by RREP for the choice of its pilot regions covered a wide range
of different aspects, but the evaluation team recommended that RREP consider some additional criteria
(e.g. budget performance, qualified personnel, energy subsidies, or gasification) when additional pilot
regions were selected. Those criteria ensured the maximization of RREP’s efforts and improved the
chances for building successful and fruitful relations at the regional level. In June 2012, RREP was
actively cooperating with one region (Kaluga Region) and envisaged three concrete activities in the
region: an analysis of RE potential, analysis of reasonable technologies and the creation of regulatory
documentation. The expectation of the regional stakeholders was that these activities would eventually
lead to the construction of operational demonstration sites that would illustrate to interested
stakeholders the practical application of RE installations and provide recommendations on ensuring the
sustainability of RE (through supportive measures like “green tariffs” or preferential rates for RE).
Negotiations of cooperation documents with several other potential pilot regions – Kamchatka, Tomsk
and Nizhniy Novgorod – were on-going throughout June 2012.

The human resources available for the implementation of the new strategy were sufficient based on one
pilot region at that time. The range of activities to be covered in Kaluga region was complex and multi-
faceted. It needed to be monitored closely to assess if one regional technical expert was able to manage
all required activities appropriately. If more pilot regions were going to be involved, more technical
experts operating in the partner regions would likely be needed. The evaluation team recommended
adding to the team a dedicated IT expert who would focus on the supervision of development and fine-
tuning of RE web-portal as indicated in the implementation plan. The IT expert would also assist in the
development of an IT-based monitoring system. The budget allocation refers to the three key objectives
only; a further breakdown of individual activities was recommended. The involvement of international
experts with very distinct capacities (e.g. RE technology, legislation), as practiced by the Program’s
management, was a very economic approach that minimized administrational costs.


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The existing M&E system covered only some of the activities as indicated in the implementation plan. It
was strongly recommended to expand the set of M&E indicators to make sure that all envisaged
activities were properly considered in the project monitoring system. Most indicators did not have
defined targets or timeframes, which made it difficult to assess the progress or if the Program had
achieved its goals; a respective revision of the indicators was recommended. In addition, many of the
indicators provided purely quantitative data and did not take the actual impact of activities, although
delayed in time, into account. This made it difficult for the project management to assess if the activities
reached the expected outcome. Consequently, it was recommended to elaborate the M&E system and
engage such tools as online surveys to gain more qualitative feedback of RREP’s interventions. This, in
return, would help to revise the approaches which failed to achieve the envisaged target.

In the opinion of the evaluation team, in order for RREP to effectively finalize its activities after the term
of the Program (five years) a number of initiatives were yet to be implemented or launched. Those
included the creation of RE demonstration sites, including the development of supporting legislation on
preferential tariffs, building of stakeholder consensus and strengthening the commitment of investors
and businesses to pursue RE installations, and building the capacity of the federal government to
provide active assistance in terms of subsidies and expertise. Under the given circumstances, it was not
likely that RE would be viable without the support of RREP, although the new strategy might initiate the
necessary dynamics to implement the RE market sustainably.

Finally, the evaluation team recommended that another evaluation of RREP’s performance would be
undertaken in two years’ term to cover the developments during a time period equal to the period
analyzed in this report and make viable comparisons. This periodic evaluation would also assess the
developments of the Russian RE market and the actual achievements under the revised strategy of the
Program. It would also help to determine if at least some of the pre-conditions for the sustainability of
RE market in Russia materialized. Depending on the results of the second evaluation it may be
considered to finalize RREP and its activities or to prolong its interventions for a limited time span to
achieve more prominent impact and prepare the market for a sustainable exit of the Program.



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