CISOLAR 2015 Baku: Central Asia to install 3.3 GW of solar power plants until 2020

By 2020, the countries of Central Asia will be built more than 150 megawatt-class solar power plants with a total capacity exceeds 3.3 GW. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) April 25, 2015 - This market forecast was announced in a speech of Vitaliy Daviy, CEO of IBCentre during the 4th International Conference and Exhibition "Solar Energy of Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia» which was held on 16-17 April in Baku.

The main regional business platform for solar energy industry, CISOLAR this year was organized by IBCentre in cooperation with the State Agency on Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources of Azerbaijan (AREA).

"Central Asia is the area of great opportunities in the field of renewable energy. The region could become a new promising market for many international players. However, the industry will boom here, after clear-cut game rules providing for investors and a stable legal framework adoption, " Vitaly Daviy said.

Azerbaijan may become an industry leader in the region - according to the Strategy for the Development of Renewable Energy of the country, there will be commissioned solar power plants with total capacity of 2, 065 GW until 2020.

Opening the CISOLAR-2015 Baku Conference, Akim Badalov, chairman of AREA pointed out that today the government is actively forming profile legal framework aimed at improving of renewable energy investment attractiveness. Also Azerbaijan is developing a technology platform for solar, wind and other alternative energy industry growth.

"We are actively studying the international experience in the implementation of renewable energy projects. We check the viability of various models and projects in our technological polygon in Gobustan, in order to avoid various bugs which a lot of countries had while developing renewables. Azerbaijan has a great potential in the development of solar energy and we want to use it as efficiently as possible," the chairman of the AREA said.

"Along with the large solar power plants, we also plan to actively develop the segment of small pv plants to provide independent power supply. There are several such projects on our technological polygon. We are also experimenting with other types of renewable energy - biogas plants, wind farm, thermal collectors. In the near future we plan to develop Smart Grid System in Gobustan (town), which will operate supplying electricity from renewable power plants. Next, we plan to build such clusters across the country," Jamil Malikov, Deputy chairman of AREA described the details of implementation of projects in Azerbaijan.

"The Central Asian region has its own peculiarities, first of all it has the unprecedented low prices for natural gas. In this regard, the construction of hybrid power plants basing on gas and pv is a sustainable source of generation, which does not require additional balancing power capacities, and is a very attractive direction for investments," Elena Skripnik, CEO of Helios Strategia in CIS commented the upcoming prospects of the pv industry development.

The speed and efficiency of implementation of renewable energy projects in Central Asia will be directly dependable on the level of technology solutions that will be used by the local market players. Avoiding technical errors that could discredit the industry will be possible if the countries of the region use the equipment and solutions which have already proved their efficiency in other markets, Andrey Maksymets, Director of Kiev office of AEG Power Solutions during his speech at CISOLAR-2015 Baku.

"With solar PV evolving into a mainstream energy source, there needs to be a shift from evaluating a power plant or its components on a nameplate capacity basis to, instead, measuring a system by its energy yield," said Karim Asali, Technical Director for Europe at First Solar. "In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where there is a tremendous amount of potential for PV technologies with superior energy yield, thin film can actively contribute to the region's solar ambitions."

According to Sergey Novatskiy, technical director of US Solar, the use of tracking systems in pv plant construction can improve the performance of power plants by 35-40% which permit to strengthen the economic effect of solar energy projects in the region.

Along with the sectoral legislative framework, the production of specialized equipment and accessories is actively formed in the region. In particular, Kazakhstan company "Astana Solar" has a full cycle of production of polysilicon and solar modules based on it. According to Vyacheslav Sovietskiy, CEO of Astana Solar, Kazakhstan has all the necessary resources for production of high-quality pv modules that can be used not only in the construction of solar power plants in the country, but also in foreign markets. "With the explosive growth in demand for modules, we are ready to increase the output of our products as soon as possible, " CEO of Astana Solar stated during his speech at CISOLAR 2015.

Dimitrios Titopoulos, Director of Business Development for Greece and emerging markets of Yingli Solar made an informative report on the topic how to maximize the investment attractiveness of solar energy projects, using the latest technological solutions of solar modules manufacturers.

Summing up the prospects of solar energy industry in Central Asia, South Caucasus and Eastern Europe, Vitaly Daviy noted that a full-fledged investment boom in the region will begin after adoption of the feed-in tariff legislation (announced by Azerbaijan government in 2015) and accurate algorithm for connection of solar energy plants to the grid.

More than 200 delegates from 25 countries took part in CISOLAR 2015 in Baku. Over the past 4 years CISOLAR has become the main business platform for communications solar energy market players whose activities are connected with the development of projects in the CIS, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Among the sponsors of CISOLAR 2015 are such companies as Helios Strategia and AEG Power Solutions. Sponsors of the sessions of the Conference are Yingli Solar, Astana Solar, US Solar, First Solar.

General information partner is Bloomberg.

Official site of the event is www.cis-solar.com

For additional Information, call us or write us:
Phone +44 207 442 55 55 or E-mail: cisolar ( @ ) ibcentre dot org

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