UAE-based Masdar installs first solar panel in Azerbaijan Facilitation of green energy transition/VIDEO

Officials from the Azerbaijani government and the United Arab Emirates-based Masdar Clean Energy Company attended this week a ceremony for the installation of the first panel of a solar power plant in the Garadagh district of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

According to the Energy Ministry of Azerbaijan, Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov together with the CEO of Masdar Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi inspected on May 16 the area where the Garadagh Solar Power Plant with an installed capacity of 230 MW is being built.

 “The first solar panel was installed at Garadagh SPP [solar power plant] with the participation of the CEO of Masdar Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi. The plant will be put into use by the end of the year,” Shahbazov wrote on Twitter.

Masdar made inroads into the renewable energy market of Azerbaijan by signing in January 2020 an implementation agreement to develop a utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) project in the South Caucasus country. The 230-MW Garadagh Solar PV Plant is the country’s first foreign investment-based independent utility-scale solar project structured as a public-private partnership.

In April 2021, Masdar inked the Investment Agreement with the government of Azerbaijan and the Power Purchase Agreement and Transmission Connection Agreement with state-run power company Azerenerji.

The UAE’s leading developer and operator of utility-scale renewable energy projects Masdar laid the foundation of the $200-million plant in Azerbaijan in March 2022. The top-notch power generation centre will reportedly become operational sometime in 2023 as one of the largest foreign investments in Azerbaijan’s renewable energy sector.

The Garadagh Solar Power Plant is expected to churn out half a billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per annum, which is enough to power more than 110,000 houses. The hi-tech facility will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 200,000 tons per annum.

Renewables are expected to make up 30 per cent of the country’s electricity generation by 2030. Estimates put the renewable energy potential of Azerbaijan at 37,000 MW, ten thousand of which have been unveiled after the liberation of the country’s territories from the Armenian occupation in 2020.

Wind power shares 59.2 per cent of the overall renewable energy potential of Azerbaijan being the largest of its kind, according to a report “Market Analysis Azerbaijan 2019” published by the German-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce.

Solar power, according to the same publication, comes in at number two with a total of 8,000 MW potential. Biomass, geothermal, and hydropower (excluding large hydropower stations) are also introduced as promising renewables at 900 MW, 800 MW, and 650 MW, respectively.

Meanwhile, Masdar is not the only Gulf company investing in the renewable energy industry of Azerbaijan. In January 2022, the ground was broken for a wind power plant in Azerbaijan’s Absheron and Khizi districts by ACWA Power, a Saudi energy giant, partly owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Public Investment Fund, which will reportedly invest $300 million in the project. The “Khizi-Absheron” wind power plant is expected to churn out 1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per annum. The plant will be commercially operable in the third quarter of 2023.