BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov.12
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Kazakhstan’s renewable energy sector (RES) is of great interest to foreign investors, a representative of Kazakh Invest National Company JSC told Trend.
Cooperation in Kazakhstan’s energy sector itself attracts attention of foreign investors, but due to the trend for ‘green’ energy development, RES sector is of especial interest, said the representative.
According to the representative of the company, cooperation with Kazakhstan in this field is perspective for the reasons such as economic attractiveness of the energy sector (including ensuring guaranteed purchase of electricity manufactured via RES, annual tariff indexation), transparency of the RES selection mechanism, political stability in the country and others.
He added that the investments' attraction of the RES sector is mainly proved by the results of auctions, in which 113 companies from nine countries participated in 2018. Thus, auctions mechanism is exactly the force that the driving development of RES in Kazakhstan.
“This mechanism has been introduced on November 7, 2017. The main goals of the auction mechanism for RES support are achievement of target indicators for RES development, reducing the impact of RES on the growth of end-user tariffs, ensuring the planned development of RES taking into account the capabilities of the unified electric power system of Kazakhstan, a transparent procedure for selecting RES projects,” the representative said.
He reminded that the auctions schedule is being approved by country’s Ministry of Energy.
“The schedule includes information on land to be allocated for RES objects construction, connection points and dates. As a result of auction held in February 2019, 36 projects the planned capacity of which was 857.35 MW were selected,” the official said.
He added that participants of auctions held in 2018 were companies from countries such as Russia, Turkey, China, France, Bulgaria, UAE, Italy and the Netherlands.
“This year, the auction was held on September 16-25, 2019, within the framework of which projects for creation of RES object of 162.89 MW of capacity were selected,” the official said.
He highlighted that the next action is planned for November of this year; at the auction, a pilot project for construction of 50 MW solar park in Turkestan region is to be presented.
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