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Azerbaijan commences electricity export to Europe

7 May 2019 11:31 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijan commences electricity export to Europe

By Leman Mammadova

In recent years, Azerbaijan has turned from an electricity importing country into a country exporting electricity. Azerbaijan, which has been exporting electricity to neighboring countries for a long time, has already begun exporting energy to European countries.

Since May 1, 2019, Azerbaijan has started supplying electricity to Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary through Georgia and Turkey, Azerenergy OJSC said in a message.

Azerenergy was among the winning companies participating in the auction to supply electricity to Greece and Bulgaria. The company also supplies electricity to Iran, Russia, Turkey and Georgia.

In the coming months, Azerenergy plans to export electricity to Austria and Italy.

In accordance with the Rehabilitation Program, Azerenergy continues to work on the restoration of lost capacity and generating capacity of the country’s power system in order to expand Azerbaijan’s export capacity, to ensure the reliability of the power system, as well as to meet the growing demand.

It is noteworthy that Azerenergy is the main exporter of electric energy in Azerbaijan. There are over 30 power plants on the balance of Azerenergy. The total power generation capacity of these stations exceeds 6,000 megawatts, which allows generating about 24 billion kWh of electricity annually.

Total electricity production in Azerbaijan amounted to 25.2 billion kWh in 2018.

In 2018, Azerbaijan's electricity exports increased by 165.2 million kWh in comparison with 2017 (1.28 billion kWh), reaching almost 1.5 billion kWh.

As many as 1.23 billion kWh of this amount was exported to Georgia, 121.5 million kWh to Russia, 80.3 million kWh to Iran, and 13.45 million kWh to Turkey.

Generally, electricity exports from Azerbaijan to Russia, Georgia, Iran and Turkey last year increased by 14.2 percent compared to 2017.

In 2018, the cost of electricity exported from Azerbaijan amounted to about $66 million, and the value of exports increased by $16 million compared to 2017.

As for January-March 2019, the volume of the electricity Azerbaijan exported amounted to 891.2 million, while the cost of the exported electricity amounted to $38.5 million.

Azerenergy produced 6.1 billion kWh of electricity in January-March 2019, which is 153 million kWh or 2.5 percent more than in the same period last year.

Exports of electricity also increased compared to the first quarter of last year. They rose by 23 percent (30 million kWh) and reached 161 million kWh in January-March 2019.

Azerbaijani government expects the power generation in 2019 at 25.5 billion kWh. This figure is expected to go up by 2 percent annually to 27.1 billion kWh in 2022.

Aiming to reduce its dependency on hydrocarbons, Azerbaijan implements a number of measures for further development of alternative energy sector.

According to the Market Analysis Azerbaijan 2019, the expansion of renewable electricity generation is estimated at 430 MW in 2018-2020, 840 MW in 2021-2025, and 925 MW in 2026-2030. At the same time, the share of renewables in the total power generation in Azerbaijan is expected to be 15 percent by 2020, 25-30 percent by 2025 and 35-40 percent by 2030.

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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