TBILISI, Georgia, May 6. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is discussing with Azerbaijan further opportunities to invest in solar energy projects, ADB Director General for Central and Western Asia Eugenue Zhukov said in an exclusive interview with Trend on the sidelines of the ADB annual meeting in Tbilisi.
“We're helping the country to develop and implement more green energy projects, so to demonstrate to the world that Azerbaijan is serious about climate change agenda. Two years ago, ADB invested in the largest solar power plant in the Caucasus. This is a 230-megawatt power plant run by Masdar company in Alat, which I also had a chance to visit. It's a very modern plant, and it's a step towards fulfilling government's desire to implement a strategy 30 by 2030, meaning that by that year, the country should be able to produce 30 percent of its all energy from renewable sources,” he said.
Zhukov noted that ADB is discussing with Azerbaijan and also with the private sector further opportunities to invest in solar energy projects.
“I hope that we will have more specific announcements for this later this year. But also in general, we are discussing with the country possibilities of investment in the offshore wind power projects. And in addition, we are piloting a solar floating power project. That's when we put the panels on a lake or on any body of water and produce energy that way. We have a small 100 kW project which is currently being implemented in one of the lakes in Baku. We'll see if this works, if we can work on it more,” he said.