Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Deployment of advanced technologies will result in substantial energy savings for Azerbaijan, the Asian Development Bank has said in a report.

"The power sector's energy savings are a result of the combination of two factors: electricity demand reduction and thermal efficiency improvement of generation units. The impacts of electricity savings will be much larger at 60 percent of the sector's savings in 2035. The remainder is from the thermal efficiency improvement," said the ADB's Asian Energy Outlook report, which was published on October 14.

The deployment of advanced combined-cycle gas turbines is expected to elevate the average thermal efficiency of Azerbaijan from 34 percent in 2010 to 43 percent in 2035.

According to the report, the residential and commercial sectors will represent the second-largest energy savings at 0.5 million tons of equivalent in 2035. The introduction of efficient lighting in the residential sector is the major contributor to its energy savings, followed by the efficiency improvement of refrigerators and water heaters.

"In the alternative case, Azerbaijan's electricity generation in 2035 will be about 12 percent lower at 33.9 TWh in 2035, compared with that of BAU at 38.5 TWh. The savings will mainly result from electricity demand savings in the industry, residential, and commercial sectors. Despite the lower electricity generation requirements, electricity generation in 2035 will be nearly 80 percent higher than in 2010 in the alternative case," the ADB said.

By energy type, electricity generation in the alternative case is almost identical to that of BAU in 2035, with a slight contraction of the natural gas share in 2035 at 90.5 percent compared with BAU at 91.8 percent, and a minor increase in the share of new and renewable energy in the alternative case at 0.6 percent in 2035, in contrast to BAU at 0.1 percent in the same year.

The State Program on Use of Alternative and Renewable Energy Resources in Azerbaijan, approved by a presidential decree in 2004, is focusing on hydropower and wind projects.

"Because of the country's cost competitiveness in hydrocarbon resources, prospects for introducing more new and renewable energy sources are low, even in the alternative case. The installed capacity for wind energy may stay at 106 MW (reflecting the ongoing projects in Sitalcaj and Baku, and planned projects in Shrabad and Gobustan) in 2035," the report said.

In the alternative case, primary energy demand is projected to increase at an annual rate of 1.9 percent through 2035, reaching 18.9 million tons of equivalent in 2035. This compares with the annual growth rate of primary energy demand of BAU at 2.3 percent during the same period.

"The slower energy demand growth in the alternative case will result in energy savings of about 1.9 million tons of equivalent in 2035 (or 9.0 percent lower than BAU), which is comparable to the combined total of industry and non-energy demand at 2.2 million tons of equivalent in 2035 in the BAU case," the report said.