## 4 Discussion
People recently out of university are more aware of environmental problems and more likely to behave pro-environmentally. The two-way relationship between education and pro-environmental behavior is evidence that the use of green practices has a positive effect on people's self-development aspirations, which is another benefit from environmental policies. Early studies demonstrated a positive correlation between willingness to pay more for green electricity and energy-saving behavior [54] and a negative correlation between willingness to pay and regularity of segregating waste [47]. The analysis of green practices in their entirety in our study confirmed that individuals more involved in pro-environmental behavior are willing to pay more for electricity derived from RES. On the other hand, the results of the survey in general reveal low willingness of the respondents to bear high RES costs. The willingness to pay more for RES is shown to depend on the country's institutional arrangements. RESs are valued more in more democratic and capitalist countries and in countries with higher GDP per capita. High CO\({}_{2}\) emissions in a country, on the other hand, reduce the willingness to pay for renewable energy [55]. We can thus assume that, as Russia's economic development advances and its CO\({}_{2}\) emissions are reduced, people will be more willing to pay extra for green electricity. That said, low willingness to pay extra is also observed in developed countries, e.g., in New Zealand, where consumers on average are willing to pay only an extra of 2% for a 10 percentage point increase in the share of electricity from renewable sources [56]. Considering the high cost of RES [57; 58; 59], such unwillingness to pay more is one of the key challenges for the development of green energy (it is one of the biggest factors for the unwillingness to transit to renewable sources [20]). Keeping in mind the correlation of willingness to pay extra with environmental awareness, environmental attitudes, peer support and income [47], as well as the negative effect of increasing social benefits on the development of the green energy market [43], the principal solutions for addressing this challenge are to raise environmental awareness, support the real sector of the economy to raise the income of industry workers and to technically upgrade the green energy production process. Knowing that the willingness to pay for renewable energy differs by source, it is reasonable, other factors being equal, to promote solar energy above biomass and farm methane [60] and hydropower [61]. In Russia, in 2017, the prices for wind and solar energy were, respectively, three and eight to nine times higher than the prices of thermal power plants and nuclear power plants [62]. Currently, in the world, the cost of producing electricity from renewable energy sources is decreasing, which, of course, is reflected in its price for end consumers [63]. One of the main reasons for this can be called the improvement of electricity production technologies [64]. What is particularly indicative is the reduction in capital costs of solar power generation [63]. Already in Russia, in a number of peripheral settlements, the use of renewable electricity is economically justified [65]. It is predicted that, in the near future in the world, on average, green energy may cost less than nuclear energy and energy from fossil sources [63]. However, in Russia, unlike in many other countries, this process will be hampered by the artificial maintenance of low prices for fossil fuels in the domestic market (these prices are lower than export prices and prices in developed foreign countries). In addition, it should be understood that the dynamics of average prices do not always correlate with the dynamics of prices in individual territories, since the price of the final consumer of electricity depends not only on the costs of its production, but also on the costs of transmission and natural and climatic features (insolation, etc.) [66].