Azerbaijan gives support to wind power station Yeni Yashma

Equipment supplier is Denmark’s Vestas (two V52 wind turbines with capacity by 1.7 MW).

A wind farm with capacity of 550 KW of power is used for training of local personnel. It is planned to install totally 16 wind turbines with capacity by 3 MW with following increase of fleet capacities up to 50 MW.

Azerbaijan has excellent conditions for the development of renewable energy sources, the energy minister told a conference in Baku today.

‘First of all, we have very high potential for wind power development, especially on the Absheron Peninsula where the wind force ranges from 3 to 27 m/sec which is considered ideal for the efficient operation of wind turbines,’ Natig Aliyev said.

‘The use of solar energy in Azerbaijan which has 260-280 days of sunshine per year is also promising. The country has geothermal waters, especially in Guba where the water temperature sometimes reaches 90 degrees. We have never used geothermal water, but today there is plenty of experience worldwide in its use, in particular, to generate heat for domestic purposes and we are going to make use of this experience,’ Aliyev said.

He told journalists on the sidelines of the conference that Azerbaijan planned to generate 3-5% of its electricity from renewable sources.

‘If we can have 3-5% of our electricity generated by alternative energy in a couple of years, then we will have achieved our objective. However, this depends on how quickly we progress,’ Aliyev said.

He said that Azerbaijan was still at the initial stage in developing alternative sources of energy.

Legislation needs to be improved to account for alternative sources, Aliyev said.

He reminded journalists that a State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Sources of Energy had been set up as part of the Ministry of Energy and Industry.

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