International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy | Vol 9 • Issue 3 • 2019 172 International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy ISSN: 2146-4553 available at http: www.econjournals.com International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 2019, 9(3), 172-178. Developing Renewable and Alternative Energy Sources to Improve the Effciency of Housing Construction and Management Ekaterina Nezhnikova 1 *, Oksana Papelniuk 2 , Mihail Dudin 3,4 1 Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 117198, 6 Miklukho-Maklaya Street, Moscow, Russian Federation, 2 National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, 129337, Yaroslavskoye Highway, 26, Moscow, Russian Federation, 3 Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), 119454, Vernadskogo Avenue, 76, Moscow, Russian Federation, 4 Market Economy Institute of RAS (MEI RAS), 117418, Nakhimovsky Avenue, 47, Moscow, Russian Federation. *Email: kat_nezhnikova@mail.ru Received: 12 January 2019 Accepted: 22 March 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.7732 ABSTRACT Demographic, economic and cultural changes increase energy consumption in the housing sector and cause even higher levels of the related greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of this work is to identify opportunities for developing renewable energy sources (RES) in the housing sector to improve its energy efficiency. The results of the study show that the construction industry, and especially the housing sector, can save more energy as compared to other types of the energy use. RES are important in reducing CO 2 emissions in the housing sector and in improving the energy efficiency of buildings. In recent years, the production and consumption of energy from renewable sources in the housing sector have increased. However, the main volume of energy consumption in buildings is provided by fossil fuels. The main barriers to the introduction of renewable energy in the DNC housing system are financial ones, as well as logistical problems of biomass transportation and storage. To reduce these barriers, the authors offer a number of measures, including the governmental support for the use of renewable energy in the systems of heat supply and cooling of buildings, as well as the creation of storage facilities for renewable energy. The system of encouraging the use of RES applied in Denmark, which is the world leader according to the use of renewable energy in the housing construction, is considered as an example. Keywords: Energy, Energy Consumption, Housing Sector, Buildings Sector, Renewable Energy Sources, DNC JEL Classifcations: Q42, O18 1. INTRODUCTION Today, energy supply has become one of the main problems of the mankind. Needs in energy increase as technology develops. It is expected that by 2035 the world energy consumption will have increased threefold as compared to 1998. In response to these needs, fossil fuel reserves are being rapidly depleted. The widespread use of traditional energy sources in the housing, transportation and industrial sectors complicates the problem even more. Buildings with the total area equivalent to Paris (105 sq. km) are built every fve days in the world (UN Environment and International Energy Agency, 2017). At the same time, their energy effciency in the housing sector is not given enough attention. The housing sector is one of the top priority areas in terms of energy effciency because it consumes a large amount of energy (on average, 20-30% of the total fnal consumption (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2009). This Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License