Masdar and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar) have begun construction on three large solar and wind projects in Azerbaijan, totalling a combined capacity of 1GW.
The groundbreaking was held during the opening of Baku Energy Week, attended by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, and Sultan Al Jaber who also serves as the chairman of Masdar.
These projects include the 445MW Bilasuvar Solar PV Project, the 315MW Neftchala Solar PV Project, and the 240MW Absheron-Garadagh Onshore Wind Project.
This development follows Masdar’s completion of the 230GW Garadagh solar plant in October 2023, notable as Azerbaijan’s first foreign-invested independent solar power project and the largest of its kind in the region.
Building on the Garadagh solar plant and additional large-scale projects underway, Masdar aims to advance Azerbaijan’s clean energy ambitions in anticipation of COP29 and beyond.
Masdar aims to achieve a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030, aligning with The UAE Consensus to triple global renewable capacity by the decade’s end.
Unexpected impact
This news comes at the same time as the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s Oil 2024 report, which explains that investing in additional capacity will cause an overabundance of oil by the end of the decade.
Fatih Biron, Executive Director of the IEA, says: “Today, the Middle East and some North African countries use significant amounts of oil to generate electricity – about 1.5 million barrels per day. That is driven mainly by Saudi Arabia. Iraq, Kuwait and others.
“We know that there are strong plans in place to replace the oil used for electricity generation by renewables or natural gas.”
