Kazakhstan’s potential wind energy exceeds its annual electricity consumption by 10-fold

Kazakhstan’s potential wind power exceeds its annual electricity consumption by 10-fold, Tengri News reported February 20.

Kazakhstan typically burns coal to generate electricity because it has a 200- to 300-year supply, Gennady Doroshin, an advisor to a UNDP/Global Environment Facility programme on energy efficiency, told Tengri News, but the country is looking for cleaner alternatives.

If wind-power stations were built in the country’s windy locations, they could generate about 920 billion kWh yearly, 10 times more than the country’s annual electricity consumption, Doroshin said.

Such construction would be expensive, he acknowledged, predicting it would take 10 years to recover investment in such an endeavour.