Grachuk V. Environmental and Legal Framework for the Use of Renewable Energy Sources

The dissertation carries out a comprehensive scientific analysis of the legal regulation of renewable energy sources based on modern legislation. Taking into account the latest scientific and theoretical achievements in the field, it formulates theoretical generalizations and practical proposals that generally solve an important scientific problem and aim to improve the regulatory support of social relations arising in the field of renewable energy sources. The understanding of renewable energy as a mandatory component of the modern greening paradigm is formulated. Renewable energy acts as a complex of organizational, legal, infrastructural, institutional and other relations for the production, distribution and consumption of energy from renewable sources. The ecological and legal significance of the category «renewable energy» concerning such important categories as sustainable development, energy transition, Green Deal is revealed. It is established that firstly, renewable energy is not a separate goal in the system of sustainable development and performs an instrumental function to achieve the outlined goals. Secondly, the concept of energy transition (energy transformation) has a clearly expressed dynamic nature and renewable energy plays the role of a reference point as well as determines the vector of the entire system of relations movement. Thirdly, the war in Ukraine (2022-2025) empirically proved that renewable energy is a key element underlying the European Green Deal, shaping and determining its capacity and adequacy to modern realities. It is found that modern domestic legal science in the field of legal regulation of the use of renewable energy sources implies two main methodological approaches. The first is sectoral one (fragmentary or specialized) characterized by the presence of specialized scientific research that focuses on the study of individual features of relations in the use of renewable energy sources. The second is an integrative one characterized by the study of relations in the use of renewable energy sources as a single complex of relations of different legal nature, but connected by a common subject. The insufficient development of the ecological and legal sectoral direction of the doctrine of the renewable energy sources used in Ukraine is highlighted. It is found that compared to other sectors (natural resource, agricultural, economic, etc.) it is at the stage of its formation. The signs of Ukraine’s gradual transition from the dominant model of self-elimination to the comprehensive application of greening measures inherent in different models are substantiated. The methodological idea of a comprehensive optimization-ecological improvement of legislation in the field of renewable energy sources in Ukraine is substantiated, the dual nature of which is that optimization involves the establishment of a formal structure of legislation, the adoption of necessary legislative acts, the abolition of unnecessary ones, and systematization, while ecologization indicates a substantive improvement, saturation of legislation with environmentally friendly norms.