Renewable energy sources-legal barriers and potential

With overwhelming evidence on the potential and emerging impacts of global climate change on human life and survival, policy makers across the world are weighing up renewable energy options as ways to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.'Distributed Generation (DG) based on renewable energy technologies such as biomass, geothermal, ocean, solar and wind energy, hydropower, and combined heat and power (CHP) are increasingly gaining prominence as important alternatives for power generation. 2 In industrialised countries, renewable energy is perceived as a potential option for diversifying energy sources and substituting renewable energy sources (RES) for fossil fuels. For example, the European Union has developed a strategy which hopes to ensure that 22.1 percent of the total electricity consumption in European countries should stem from RES.