"International organizations have already analyzed and determined our potential in depth. Our wind energy potential alone exceeds 150 gigawatts," President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said during an interview with local television channels on January 5.
President Ilham Aliyev said:
"There are also, thank God, many sunny days, both in Baku and in all our regions. The wind energy potential of the Caspian Sea is quite extensive. Therefore, it would be a sin not to use it.
When we made these opportunities available to the global energy community, we saw great interest from them. Today, our main investor is Masdar, a company from the United Arab Emirates which built the first solar power plant with a capacity of 230 megawatts. The second plant will be commissioned in the near future. Here, too, the investor is the Saudi Arabian ACWA Power. It is also a 240 megawatt plant. bp has started building a third major plant in the Jabrayil district, also with a capacity of 240 megawatts. This is just the beginning. At the same time, Chinese and Turkish companies are also showing interest. We have also appealed to Azerbaijani companies, and since this is a profitable and a necessary sector for the country, we have also appealed to them. And local companies have already joined the process. At the end of last year, I even laid the foundation stone for two plants in Jabrayil.
Today, the only country in the broader region which has extra capacity of electric power is Azerbaijan. Today, we have 2,000 megawatts or 2 gigawatts of extra capacity, which we do not use for our domestic purposes, and which can be exported or can be consumed here.
The map of solar and wind power plants has been approved, both on land and at sea, including on the liberated lands. Currently, our main goal is to expand the capacity to receive this energy. Because according to the existing plans, 6,000 megawatts of solar, wind and hydropower will be included in our system by 2030, and 8,000 megawatts by 2032. In other words, in order to accept and absorb this, we need to strengthen our energy system. This is called the energy grid.
The responsibility of countries rich in oil and gas is demonstrated by countries like Azerbaijan and many others that have abundant oil and gas resources but also invest in green energy.
In parallel with this, battery storage systems must also be built. At the initial stage, we appealed to foreign companies to do this work as investors. But we saw that there was no particular interest. That is, we are already installing the first batteries with a capacity of about 250 megawatts, but there will be even more. Because, let me repeat, our short-term plans are to obtain 8 gigawatts of energy.
As you know, in November 2024, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan signed an agreement in Baku on the construction of an energy cable.
I am sure that we will do this. Because contracts have already been signed, not memorandums of understanding but contracts, so this is already a legal obligation. What will this give us? Of course, there will be opportunities to save on the gas consumed for energy and export the existing gas. We are expanding our existing gas infrastructure for this, not in Azerbaijan but in other places. This will enable us to export clean energy, and as you know, there is a Black Sea cable project. Although its feasibility study is ready, the funding sources are not yet clear. Our position is that we produce energy here and extend new transmission lines to the Georgian border. Because new lines are required. The rest should be the financial obligation of the other countries. Taking this into account, as I mentioned, we have also agreed with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on the construction of a cable under the Caspian Sea. Here, too, the feasibility study is now underway.
We have created hydroelectric power stations with a capacity of 307 megawatts in five years, and of course, consumption in the liberated regions is much lower. Therefore, by creating this circular system, we can distribute the energy flow throughout the country at the appropriate level today.
The third possible option, or all options are possible together, is to consume energy here. Here, I repeat, artificial intelligence and data centers are the most energy-intensive projects. Again, neither in the South Caucasus, nor in Central Asia or in the immediate neighborhood, there is no other country that can have as much free energy as we do. Because some countries buy natural gas from abroad to convert it into electricity, some buy electricity from abroad because they do not have enough for themselves. But we sell and export energy – gas, oil, oil products, petrochemical products as well as natural gas fertilizer, which serves as the main raw material. In other words, the entire cycle is complete in our country: both domestic consumption and export.
The more renewables we have, the more gas we will save for export.
Therefore, of course, we will continue our activities in this direction. Today, the number of companies interested in investing in this area is so high that, I repeat, our energy centers cannot handle it. Therefore, we need to strengthen the energy grid so that we can receive and transmit not only 8, but even 20, 30, 40 gigawatts in the future. Azerbaijan is an indispensable partner for European consumers today and for many, many years to come. And our role as a reliable supplier of energy security will only grow. It will not go down; it will go up. And when we add electricity, green energy, and hydrogen, including green hydrogen, our role will be even greater".
