Azerbaijan increasing electricity production

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan continues increasing electricity production. The country produced 18.75 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the last ten months, which is 6.6 percent more than in the same period of 2013, the State Statistics Committee reported.

Some 17.79 billion kilowatt-hours from the total electricity produced in January-October fell to commodity, which was 6.2 percent more than in the same period last year.

The report said the share of thermal power plants in electricity production in January-October 2014 accounted for 16.68 billion kilowatt-hours, which is 7.3 percent more than the same period last year.

Hydroelectric power plants in this period produced 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours of commodity electricity, which is less by 8.8 percent than the same period in 2013.

Moreover, capacities for wind power generation produced in January-October reach 6.1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Azerbaijan's major electricity producer Azerenergy has produced about 20.63 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2013. The index exceeds production of 2012 by 0.6 billion kilowatt hours.

Azerbaijani electro-energy power generation has increased by 30 percent over the past five years.

Currently this capacity is 7,105 megawatts which makes it possible to produce about 24 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which in turn allows the country to export annually 2.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.

At present, Azerbaijan plans to export electricity to Afghanistan and Iraq through Iran. Earlier, an agreement was also reached on the synchronization of Azerbaijan's energy system with the systems of Russia and Iran.

As a transit country, Azerbaijan will receive dividends from the operation of electricity transmission.