Baku, Azerbaijan, October 3
By Nargiz Sadikhova – Trend:
Expansion of gas use in electric energy is currently f relevance for Kazakhstan, Director of Oil-Qas and Energy Sector Development Department of KAZENERGY Association Yaromir Rabay told Trend.
According to him, the coal was the main fuel of Kazakh energy sector, which was formed in 1970s. It was precisely the period during which the main coal-based capacities were created, which are considered to remain as baseline today.
“Expansion of gas use in electric energy is relevant for Kazakhstan. Firstly, this is accepted as one of the most important ways for the country to implement its international responsibilities in CO2 emissions decrease by moving away from using coal for producing of thermal energy. Secondly, it will allow to meet the growing demand for maneuverable energy via necessity of regulation of frequency and volume growth of renewable energy,” he said.
Rabay reminded that the selection of renewable energy projects in Kazakhstan is being implemented via auction since last year.
“This allowed to make the process of projects and investors selection more transparent and easy to understand, as well as to select more efficient technologies. Furthermore, first auctions allowed to decrease the tariff on electric energy manufactured via selected projects. Thus, renewable energy sector is becoming one of the dynamically developing sectors of the country's energy complex,” he said.
However, according to Rabay, the problem of renewable energy sources development is related to the fact that the country must have a reserve of traditional capacity of the same volume, which can be produced by wind and solar parks.
“As long as we have cheap raw materials for traditional electric stations, it makes sense to develop them and work on increase of their efficiency. Notwithstanding fast rate of renewable energy sources' increase, it is important to remember that the majority of the energy resources demand will be covered by traditional sources of hydrocarbons for many years on in the future,” he noted.
In his opinion, large scale construction of renewable energy sources is practical when the cost of the electric energy manufactured by these sources is lower or is equal to the cost of electric energy generated by traditional electric stations.
“We should combine actively using coals before 2030 and switching to gas,” Rabay concluded.
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