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Qabil Ashirov

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A new era starts in the Azerbaijan economy with the launching of the green energy initiative. Azerbaijan aims to change all its traditions with this new initiative. As is known, none of the former Soviet Republics could recover its economy after the collapse of the USSR and Azerbaijan is not excluded. Extracting crude oil fossil fuels and exporting them have been the main drivers in Azerbaijan's economy.

However, such kind of economy could never be satisfactory for the government of Azerbaijan for a long period of time. Because the country has imported roughly everything from abroad including the equipment used in fossil fuel extraction and products manufactured from them. On the other hand, the country could made much more profit if the country could have produced the equipment and process the fossil fuel within the country.

Strictly speaking, the policy pursued by Azerbaijan in these 30 years is understandable and quite reasonable. The country did not have relevant technology, know-how and finance. The only way was to invite international companies to the country and allow them to invest oil and gas sector. Baku did it and thanks to this policy, the economy of the country thrived. The GDP of the county skyrocketed by 175 times which is considered the best performance. The country conducted mega infrastructural projects. First of all, the country was supplied with unintermittent electricity. The gasification of the country has almost completed. Over 30K km of roads, new harbors, and airports have been constructed. New hospitals and schools have been built, old ones have been repaired.

Besides, more than one million refugees and IDPs, who were expelled from their hometowns by Armenians, have been provided with houses. Most importantly, Baku formed a new modern army which liberated the invaded territories in 44 days in 2020. Thanks to its successfully implemented oil and gas policy, in a nutshell, the country grew its economy at the grass roots.

Just now, Azerbaijan has completed most of its infrastructure works, and the country has a new challenge - to industrialize. In this direction, Azerbaijan has taken several steps as well. Establishing industrial parks, estates and agro-parks can be of bright example.

As is known, Azerbaijan has a new mega energy project – to generate electricity from renewable sources and export the electricity to Europe by 2030. Surely, after oil and gas, it will turn Azerbaijan into an energy hub for the Old Continent. This time Azerbaijan is not as weak as it was 30 years ago and that is why, Baku approaches the issue totally differently. Baku is not going to sell only energy but manufacture the equipment used in the generation of electricity, so to speak. For this purpose, Baku is holding conversations with Vestas Wind Systems.

Vestas Wind Systems is a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer, and servicer of wind turbines. The company was founded in 1945. The company operates manufacturing plants in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, India, Italy, Romania, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Australia, China, Brazil, Poland and the United States, and employs 29,000 people globally.

Several days ago Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov received Jens Pinderup, the Vice-President of Vestas. The meeting discussed possible collaboration on manufacturing wind turbines as part of developing the Green Energy generation and export projects in Azerbaijan. It is worth noting that it is not the first meeting between Azerbaijan and Vestas, the sides have met several times so far.

Manufacturing wind turbines is a promising sector for Azerbaijan. Because green energy is an energy for the future. Year by year, the production of green energy increases. Only back in 2023 the increase in this sector reached by 50 percent. This means that Azerbaijan can export not only green energy but also wind turbines as well in the future.

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Qabil Ashirov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @g_Ashirov

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