Baku, Azerbaijan, April 28
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
The launch of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey energy corridor will primarily ensure repaying Turkey for electricity supplies to Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
Speaking to Trend on April 25, Azerbaijani Deputy Energy Minister Natig Abbasov said that currently Nakhchivan's debt to Turkey for electricity supplies stands at about 3.5 billion kilowatt hours.
Over the past five years Nakhchivan repaid only 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity out of its total debt to Turkey (3.6 billion kilowatt hours).
Abbasov said that following the launch of the energy corridor, it will be possible to ensure returning the energy debt to Turkey within one year and then go for exports.
Such a scheme of repaying the energy debt to Turkey will allow full load of Azerbaijan's generating capacities, which will further improve the efficiency of electricity production in the country.
The deputy minister also said Azerbaijan's total annual export capacity stands at about seven to eight billion kilowatt hours of electricity.
The power plants of Azerenergy Production Association (deals with production and distribution of electricity in Azerbaijan) generated over 6.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in January-March 2014.
Azerenergy's power plants produced about six billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the first quarter of 2013.
The production association's power plants produced over two billion kilowatt hours of electricity in March 2014 versus about two billion kilowatt hours produced in March, 2013.
In total Azerenergy generated over 21.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2013 as compared to 21.3 billion kilowatt hours in 2012.
Capacity of the power plants owned by the Azerenergy exceeds 6.5 megawatts.
Translated by E.A.
Edited by C.N.