Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey energy bridge enjoys great prospects, minister says
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By Aynur Karimova
The Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey energy bridge opens great prospects in terms of the export of the country's electricity, Natig Aliyev believes.
Azerbaijan's Energy Minister said on April 15 in his article published in the official press that work on the establishment of the bridge is underway.
Over the past 10 years, Azerbaijan has inaugurated new power stations operating on modern technologies, and the capacity of electricity generation system of the country has reached 7,149 megawatts.
"By 2003-2004, Azerbaijan faced problems with power supply of the population due to the outdated power plants and transmission lines. But then, thanks to the renewal of the existing infrastructure and construction of new power plants, Azerbaijan not only managed to cover the domestic demand, but also began to export electricity. From this perspective, the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey energy bridge enjoys great prospects," he noted.
In 2015, Azerbaijan produced more than 22.5 billion kilowatt / hours of electricity compared to about 22.7 billion kilowatt / hours produced in 2014.
The capacity of electricity generation system of Azerbaijan has boosted by 30 percent in the last five years.
Currently, this figure stands at 7,149 megawatts, which allows producing about 24 billion kilowatt / hours of electricity annually. This enables the country to annually export 2.1 billion kilowatt / hours of electricity.
Azerbaijan's electricity production capacities allow the South Caucasus nation to be an electricity exporter. Azerbaijan can also become a transit country, thus getting dividends for transmission of electricity.
In November 2015, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak confirmed the interest in linking the energy systems with Azerbaijan and Iran. In February 2016, Iran also expressed interest in linking the electricity networks with Azerbaijan and Russia.
In response, Azerbaijan confirmed the interest and readiness for resuming the meetings as part of the tripartite working group. If implemented, linking the electricity systems of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia will enable Baku to carry out electricity export-import operations.
The Energy Ministry plans to commission new facilities with a capacity of 2,800 MW by 2020.
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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter @Aynur_Karimova
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