The Liberum: Europe’s green energy bet rests on Azerbaijan

Online publication The Liberum has released an article analysing Azerbaijan’s role in regional energy security and renewable electricity integration. Drawing on the European Commission’s 2026 meta-study, it highlights Azerbaijan as both a reliable gas supplier and an emerging hub for electricity transit. The piece also covers key projects, including the Southern Gas Corridor, the Black Sea Submarine Cable, and the Zangezur energy corridor. Caliber.Az presents the most telling parts of the piece.

"The European Commission’s 2026 meta-study on energy connectivity across the Eastern Partnership, the South Caucasus, Türkiye, and Central Asia provides a timely assessment of Brussels' view of the evolving energy architecture on its eastern flank. 

While framed as a high-level analytical exercise rather than a policy blueprint, the document implicitly highlights Azerbaijan as one of the few regional actors capable of contributing simultaneously to Europe’s short-term energy security and its longer-term decarbonization objectives.

Developments in Azerbaijan’s energy sector throughout 2025 and early 2026 closely align with this assessment, reinforcing the country’s role not only as a stabilising gas supplier but also as an emerging hub for electricity transit across multiple corridors.

From the EU’s perspective, diversification remains the cornerstone of energy security. Despite the bloc’s long-term commitment to climate neutrality, the meta-study acknowledges that natural gas will continue to play a stabilising role during the transition, particularly in Southeast and Central Europe.

In this context, Azerbaijan’s role through the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) remains strategically significant. In 2025, Azerbaijan exported approximately 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas, generating approximately $8.8 billion in revenue. Azerbaijani gas reached 16 countries, including 12 in Europe, following the start of supplies to Austria and Germany via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline in January 2026.

Exports to the European Union averaged around 13 bcm per year, reinforcing Azerbaijan’s reputation as a reliable supplier as Europe prioritises diversification away from Russian energy. Baku has signalled readiness to increase deliveries, while emphasising the need for long-term demand guarantees to justify upstream investments.

At the “Azerbaijan Executive Breakfast” during the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Ilham Aliyev stated that Europe has shown little investment interest in Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel or renewable energy sectors.

Nonetheless, the meta-study underscores that Europe’s future energy security increasingly depends on electricity connectivity and renewable energy integration.

While Azerbaijan is not yet a direct electricity exporter to the EU, it is increasingly embedded in the regional ecosystem Brussels views as strategically consequential. The Black Sea Submarine Cable project, linking the South Caucasus to Southeastern Europe, stands at the centre of this vision.

Developed jointly by Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, and Hungary, the 1,155-kilometre cable will transmit up to 1,300 megawatts of renewable electricity across the Black Sea. The project received EU Project of Mutual Interest status in December 2025, strengthening access to financing and regulatory support, with completion targeted for 2032.

However, the EU meta-study emphasises that large-scale export routes depend on strengthened internal grids and alternative transmission paths. In this regard, Azerbaijan’s parallel investment in south-western electricity infrastructure — particularly the emerging Zangezur energy corridor — complements the Black Sea route.

By restoring direct electricity connectivity between mainland Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave and extending this line toward Türkiye, Baku is laying the groundwork for a continuous South Caucasus–Türkiye–Europe electricity axis that strengthens system resilience.

Construction has begun on the Zangezur high-voltage transmission line, designed to integrate Nakhchivan into Azerbaijan’s unified electricity system. A subsequent phase foresees a 400 kV transmission line from Nakhchivan to Türkiye, aligning Azerbaijan’s grid more closely with European technical standards.

These connectivity ambitions are reinforced by Azerbaijan’s rapid progress in renewable energy deployment. A milestone came in January 2026 with the inauguration of the Khizi–Absheron Wind Power Plant, the largest wind facility in the South Caucasus.

The launch builds on earlier projects such as the 230-megawatt Garadagh Solar Power Plant, developed with the UAE’s Masdar, which has produced over one billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and saved more than 110 million cubic meters of gas since commissioning.

The Garadagh Solar PV Plant is the largest solar facility in the Caspian region and across the CIS. Developed with $262 million in foreign investment, it represents the country’s first industrial-scale solar project implemented through international financing.

The European Commission’s meta-study stresses that such ambitions must be underpinned by reinforced national grids, storage solutions, and regulatory alignment. Expanded clean power generation has enabled the country to reallocate natural gas for export while stabilising the domestic electricity supply.

Beyond domestic generation, Azerbaijan’s geographic position gives it increasing relevance in east–west electricity corridors beyond the Black Sea. The Commission notes country-driven proposals for a Trans-Caspian electricity link connecting Central Asia to the South Caucasus and onward to Europe.

Azerbaijan’s agreements with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to develop a Central Asia–Azerbaijan green energy corridor, supported by feasibility studies from the Asian Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, reinforce this vision.

Azerbaijan’s participation in multilateral memoranda on renewable electricity trade with Georgia, Türkiye, and Bulgaria reflects gradual progress toward deeper market integration. However, further regulatory convergence will be required to translate connectivity into sustained commercial flows.

Taken together, the European Commission’s 2026 meta-study and Azerbaijan’s energy trajectory through early 2026 tell a converging story. Azerbaijan is no longer viewed solely as a hydrocarbon supplier, nor as a fully fledged green energy exporter. Instead, it occupies a strategically valuable middle ground—combining gas supply reliability, renewable energy expansion, and bidirectional electricity connectivity," the article reads.

By Aghakazim Guliyev