Georgian govt calls off construction of new facilities generating 1.75 GW of renewable energy
TBILISI. Oct 20 (Interfax) - The government of Georgia has canceled the implementation of over 50 projects to build hydroelectric power plants, wind farms and solar power plants with a total capacity of 1.75 GW, business publication bm.ge reported, citing a government decree.
"In adopting the aforementioned decree, the Government of Georgia confirms that the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development has terminated administrative proceedings for projects to produce 1746.5 MW of electricity," the government is quoted as saying in the decree by bm.ge.
The government wrote that the decree applied to energy projects at the early stage of their development, on which the state and investors have not signed any memoranda. The state had planned to sign the agreements for the projects using a direct contracting mechanism, the implementation of the projects having been approved earlier by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development.
Despite this, Georgia included these projects in its energy mix for future years and in its ten-year development plan.
The government wrote in the decree that a significant proportion of the projects were called off because there were no diagrams to show how they would be connected to the grid in the rationale, and no assessment of the grid's capacity to take in the electricity produced. Several other projects will similarly not go ahead due to lacking research and a failure to address gaps.
As reported, the Georgian government approved a development plan for the national grid at the end of last year, intending to more than double production capacity from the current 4,621 MW to 10,336 MT before 2034 by increasing output capacity at hydroelectric power plants and building new wind farms and solar power plants.
According to the document, 7222 MW or 70% of the grid's total output should be produced at hydroelectric power plants, compared to 74% currently, 1291 MW at wind farms, 110 MW at solar power plants and 1480 MW at new units built at existing hydroelectric power plants by 2034.
