Innovative approaches to energy resource saving and use of renewable energy sources to reduce the cost of agro-industrial enterprises

Abstract

This article is devoted to the relevant problem of development of innovative approaches to energy saving and the use of renewable energy sources in order to reduce the costs of agro-industrial enterprises. It is concluded that promising directions for achieving sustainable development of agro-industrial enterprises include minimizing costs, synergistic approach to the combination of natural and economic resources, maintaining balance among economic, ecological and social factors, innovative competitiveness, and long-term focus. On the basis of the materials described in the article, it is considered necessary to formulate the main conclusions: 

• the efficiency of the activity of economic entities (including agro-industrial and agricultural producers) depends on the presence of innovative approaches to their management. At present, innovative technologies should be considered not only as a source of competitive advantages, but also as a tool to reduce costs in production, logistics, marketing, and other business processes;
• renewable energy, which is based on modern high-tech technologies of the transformation of primary energy into energy sources, can become one of the key directions of costs optimization of agro-industrial and agricultural producers; this is confirmed by the practice and statistics obtained in the studies of the agro-industrial sector of the European Union, Asia, Eurasia, and Latin America;
• for the Russian agro-industrial sector, the task of reducing costs is particularly acute, as the level of expenditures on energy supply is steadily increasing, which affects not only the profitability of business, but also its competitiveness. A sectoral energy model based on a combination of conventional and renewable energy sources has been developed to tackle this problem;
the transition to renewable energy in the agro-industrial sector should be accompanied by energy audit and implementation of power management systems. This will determine the rational combination of energy resources used to ensure the normal functioning and sustainable development