Azernews.Az

By Nigar Abbasova

Energy-rich Azerbaijan intends to significantly increase its energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services until 2020.

Director at Institute for Scientific Research on Economic Reforms Vilayat Valiyev said that the country plans to increase its energy efficiency by 20 percent until 2020.

The objective is reflected in the Azerbaijan 2020: Look into the Future development concept, which also envisages the decrease of gas emissions from boilers by 20 percent, as well as increasing the share of renewable energy in the total energy mix from the current 16 up to 20 percent.

Valiyev went on saying that a number of measures should be implemented to reach the goal of using less energy to achieve the same ends. He noted that there is a necessity to upgrade the legal basis, as well as determine investment plans in the sphere.

Deputy Head of department of economy and governmental programs at the State Agency on Alternative and Renewable Energy, Rauf Gurbanov said that Azerbaijan has a great potential to increase production in the sphere of alternative energy.

Noting that the potential of renewables in the country exceeds the level of 25,300 megawatt, he said this allow the country to produce 62.8 billion kilowatt/hours of electricity per year.

The energy-rich country generates power through hydroelectric, wind and solar power plants, as well as biogas installations.

A major part of the country’s capacity in this area accounts for solar energy, while the potential is estimated at 5,000 megawatts. Some 4,500 megawatts accounts for wind power, 1,500 megawatts – for biomass, 800 megawatts - for geothermal energy, and the remaining 350 megawatts - for the potential of small hydro power plants (HPP).

Yeni Yashma, wind power station with the capacity of 50 megawatts, located in the Khizi region of the country is considered to be one of the major projects on the development of renewable energy.

Other large-scale projects include wind farms “Wind Island - 1” (with the capacity of 198 megawatts), “Absheron” (with the capacity of 80 megawatts) and a power plant, operating from bio-resources, while its capacity stands at 16 megawatts.

Renewable energy sources and natural gas are expected to be become the major players of the energy market in the years to come. International Energy Agency (IEA) in its most-recent World Energy Outlook 2016 report said that renewables and natural gas are the big winners in the race to meet energy demand growth until 2040.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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