Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 24
By Fakhri Vakilov – Trend:
The amount of Kazakhstan's capital investments aimed at protecting the environment amounted to 33.1 billion tenge for the first three months of 2019, which 15.6 times more than in the same period last year, Trend reports with reference to kapital.kz.
In January-March 2018, the amount of investments was only 2.1 billion tenge (with an annual growth of 7.9 percent), and 30.6 billion tenge in January-July.
The report on the state of the environment of Kazakhstan prepared by the Ministry of Energy demonstrates that, as of the end of March this year, the cities of Nur-Sultan, Karaganda and Temirtau were classified as having very high levels of air pollution. Almaty, Atyrau, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Aktobe, Zhezkazgan and Semey were also included in the list with a high level of pollution. Some other large cities such as Kokshetau, Uralsk, Kostanay, Kyzylorda and Pavlodar belong to the areas with low level of pollution.
The largest volume of investments in environmental safety for the first three months was directed to Atyrau region. The amount reached 23.4 billion tenge, having impressively increased 45.3 times compared to the same period last year (515.2 million tenge). Investments aimed at protecting the environment in the Akmola region reached 5 billion tenge, while the previous year the amount was only 3 million tenge. Karaganda region closes the top three of the regions receiving the largest investments: 3.3 billion tenge with the 6.2 times. It is noteworthy that that Karaganda region not only invests in environmental safety, but also develops safe energy.
By the end of June of this year, the construction of a solar power plant shall be completed near the Agadyr village in the Shet district of the region. The solar power plant with the capacity of 50 MV will cover an area of 120 hectares. The cost of the project is 55 million euros provided by private investors. It is expected that the region attracts about $500 million in three-four years to produce alternative energy.
In 2018, the total installed capacity of renewable energy sources reached 531 MW, while it was 342.3 MW in the previous year. The largest share falls on solar power plants with capacity of 209 MW and small hydropower plants with the capacity of 200.3 MW. The installed capacity of wind power plants and bioelectric power stations was 121.5 MW and 0.3 MW, respectively.
In 2018, electricity production by renewable energy facilities reached 1.3 billion kWh, an increase of 22.6 percent over the year. The volume of electricity directly produced by solar power plants amounted to 142.3 million kWh. The volume of production of electric energy by small hydropower plants and wind power plants reached 807.4 million kWh and 401.9 million kWh, respectively.
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