Baku’s Renewable Push Beneficial properties Momentum with New Solar and Wind Projects
By Eurasianet – Jun 08, 2024, 2:00 PM CDT
Azerbaijan has launched the nation’s greatest renewable vitality funding carrying out up to now: the constructing of two listing voltaic plant life and a wind vitality plant. It marks a serious step in Baku’s ambitious thought to generate 30 p.c of its vitality desires by renewable sources by 2030.
The three plant life – the 445 Megawatt (MW) Bilasuvar listing voltaic facility, the 315 MW Neftchala listing voltaic plant and the 240 MW Absheron-Garadagh wind farm are being developed by a consortium of UAE renewable vitality firm Masdar and Azerbaijan’s train oil firm Socar.
Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the three plant life, held during Baku’s “Energy Week” convention, Azerbaijan’s vitality minister, Parviz Shahbazov, said the initiatives were a signal of the nation’s “solidarity and dedication to vitality transition” forward of web hosting the UN COP 29 Climate Alternate Conference in November this yr.
Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE’s minister of swap and superior technology, said the Emirates were desperate to “strengthen Azerbaijan’s scuttle towards vitality diversification.”
The groundbreaking ceremony followed the signing of three agreements between the Azerbaijani authorities and Masdar, masking the leasing of land for constructing of the three plant life, enabling the transmission of the vitality they’re going to assemble by Azerbaijan’s vitality grid and for the acquisition of the electricity. No particulars were released about the three agreements.
On the opposite hand, Masdar representatives confirmed to Eurasianet that the UAE firm owns 75 p.c of the three initiatives, with Socar possessing the final 25 p.c. The Bilasuvar listing voltaic facility is anticipated to be operational by the cease of 2026, Masdar representatives added. The other two services and products desires to be generating vitality by the cease of the next yr.
Azerbaijan has been pursuing an aggressive replacement formula to assemble vitality, striving to diminish its dependence on natural gasoline-fired plant life by upping renewalable sources, primarily wind and listing voltaic.
Baku’s motivation is no longer entirely inexperienced or altruistic.
Azerbaijan is dependent on exports of oil and gasoline for as powerful as 95 p.c of its export earnings, a deliver no longer anticipated to swap dramatically for the foreseeable future. The nation’s renewable vitality strategy no longer entirely could well help in the “greening” of the Azerbaijani vitality sector, but this can even dangle gasoline currently passe to generate Azerbaijan’s vitality readily available for export. That technique extra revenues for train coffers.
The three plant life now being constructed alone are anticipated to diminish the nation’s annual gasoline ask by 500 million cubic meters. That quantity will now be freed for export. Baku desires the total extra gasoline it will free up to help meet its commitments to the EU to double its provide of gasoline by 2027.
Baku’s growth in implementing its replacement vitality strategy has been slower than it originally hoped. The nation’s first grid-scale listing voltaic plant, the 230 MW Garadagh plant, entirely became operational final yr. But the tempo now looks to be picking up.
The three plant life now below constructing are projected to generate 1 Gigawatt of vitality. And by the Energy Week, Shahbazov met with representatives of the Saudi vitality community ACWA to focus on about two recent doable initiatives, the constructing of onshore services and products with a total capacity of 1 GW, and a 1.5 GW off-shore wind farm and battery storage facility. ACWA’s existing carrying out, the 240 MW Khizi-Absheron wind farm, is due to open up generating vitality in 2025.
Shahbazov also met with officials from France’s TotalEnergies to focus on about each the Absheron gasoline field the firm operates and discover techniques to swagger forward with deliberate cooperation in trend of initiatives in the Nakhchivan exclave able to generating 500 MW of vitality.
Individually, the Baku Energy Week also saw the signing of 5 recent natural gasoline agreements with Turkey.
Surely one of the most agreements extends an existing provide association for five years between Azerbaijan’s train gasoline export firm AGSC and Turkey’s train gasoline importer Botas. The settlement had been due to expire at the cease of this yr. Tiny print of the extension were no longer disclosed, but below the existing settlement, Botas was anticipated to import around 13 bcm of gasoline over a three-yr length ending 2024.
The other four agreements signed between Azerbaijan’s train oil firm and Botas screen the transit of gasoline from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to Turkey and Europe, and, separately, to Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan. No particulars of these agreements were disclosed both.
Officials maintain confirmed entirely that the settlement pertaining to Nakhchivan relates to a gasoline pipeline to join Turkey and Nakhchivan. The carrying out is slated for completion this yr. This recent pipeline will allow Baku to provide the enclave with its fill gasoline by Turkey.
The other agreements appear to evaluate Turkey’s desire to diminish its dependency on Russian gasoline by growing its import alternate choices to consist of Turkmen vitality, besides Ankara’s efforts to create a transit hub for Turkmen and Azerbaijani vitality walk for Europe.
By David O’Byrne by Eurasianet.org
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