Azerbaijan plans to implement renewable energy projects worth $2.8 bln by 2027
BAKU. Oct 18 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan is planning to build eight solar power plants and wind farms totaling $2.8 billion using foreign and domestic investment, Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said in an article published in official media on Friday.
"Azerbaijan is rapidly moving along the path of green energy, and this is an irreversible process. This is proven by the fact that we plan to implement projects for building eight industrial-scale solar power plants and wind farms with a total capacity of 2GW using foreign and local investment and totaling $2.8 billion and connect them to the network by 2027," he said.
Annual electricity production of 5.3 billion kWh at the solar plants and wind farms that will be commissioned in the next three years will save 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 2.5 million tonnes, he said.
Azerbaijan is currently taking appropriate measures to strengthen the national energy network and integrate it with the renewal energy network as much as possible, based on analyses by the companies Tetra Tech (U.S.), EPRA (Turkey) and CESI (Italy), he said.
In this connection, financing is stipulated for measures to strengthen the network primarily through World Bank loans, as part of the AZURE project, he said. The project involves laying power lines to connect solar plants and wind farms with a capacity of 1 GW being built by the Masdar company to the network, as well as building the 500/300 kV Navakhi substation.
"Another priority is installing energy storage systems with capacity of 300 MW. The latest research shows that it will be possible to raise the capacity of renewable energy within the system to 2,250 MW and the share of green energy to 34.7% by 2030 through measures to strengthen networks," he said.
Azerbaijan is also developing a national hydrogen strategy, he said.
Hydrogen is a component of Azerbaijan's green development and energy supply program, he said.
"A National Strategy for Hydrogen Development is being worked out for producing and using low-carbon hydrogen and evaluating the opportunities to export it through green corridors, as well as for determining target figures based on established scenarios. We plan to finalize the document for developing the strategy and the plan for implementing it by the time of COP29, and present the final version on Energy Day [November 15]," he said.
The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or COP29 will take place in Azerbaijan on November 11-22, 2024.
