Azerbaijan, Baku, October 31 /Trend A.Akhundov/
The Government of Azerbaijan and the World Bank (WB) have started a dialogue in order to develop the country's renewable energy resources, WB Baku Office told Trend on Wednesday.
"The Azerbaijani leadership has repeatedly referred to this industry as a priority. There are initial contacts, but it is still difficult to talk about a specific project," the bank said.
The parties will come to a concrete decision on the matter by the end of the year, the government told Trend.
Azerbaijan is developing a strategy for the use of alternative and renewable energy sources in 2012-2020. Management of this strategy will enable the country to reach a 20 per cent threshold share of alternative energy by 2020 in the total energy consumption.
This indicator amounted to 10 per cent in 2011 (9.8 per cent - hydropower, 0.2 per cent - other types of alternative energy sources).
According to the plan, the share of alternative energy sources in the total energy consumption will be increased to 9.7 per cent by 2020. Azerbaijan is an oil and gas country and electricity producer. The country produces about 50 million tons of oil, 27 billion cubic meters of gas and more than 18 billion kilowatt / hours of electricity. All this requires the use of new technologies in order to reduce and prevent emissions from the mining, fuel combustion and gas industries.