Even though Kazakhstan has significant resources of oil and gas and is an energy independent country the Republic develops green technologies and “clean” power industry hoping to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and other contaminating substances.

Currently 90 facilities of renewable energy sources are operating in Kazakhstan with total capacity of 1050.1 MW. And only since the beginning of 2019 21 facilities of renewable energy sources were put into operation with capacity of 504.55 MW according to data reported by the Republic of Kazakhstan Ministry for power industry.

It is planned to bring the number of renewable energy sources in 2020 to 108 with total capacity of 1655 MW.

“However in the country rich of hydrocarbons development of renewable energy sources is not economically beneficial and requires great support from the state. But understanding of climatic risks allowed Kazakhstan to take an important step towards development of renewable energy sources in the country. Thus, a concept for transition to ”green economy”, law on support of renewable energy sources were adopted, conditions for attraction of investments for realization of renewable energy sources projects were created, i.e. a certain work was carried out in the country regarding development of renewable energy sources policy, regarding improvement of legal base with the purpose of attracting investors” – they reported from the Ministry for power industry.

The Ministry plans to increase capacities of renewable energy sources and reach the planned index of 3% of total electric power production in 2020, which will give an opportunity of realizing greater renewable energy sources projects for reaching the target indicator of 10% by 2030 reflected in the Concept of the Republic of Kazakhstan’s transition to the “green” economy.

What was done

We remind that since 2018 selection for realization of renewable energy sources projects is carried out on auction basis. This mechanism allowed on one hand to make the projects and investors selection process more transparent and understandable, on the other hand it allowed to place stake on more efficient technologies and projects allowing to minimize impact of operating facilities of renewable energy sources on rates of end consumers.

Auction international selling 2018-2019 were carried out in electronic format for renewable energy sources projects with total capacity of 1 205 MW.

138 companies from 12 countries took part in the auction: Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Italy, UAE, Netherlands, Malaysia, Spain. Participants of the auction regarding proposed 1205 MW submitted applications for realization of projects with fixed capacity of 3893.52 MW, which 3.2 times exceeded the demand.

According to the auction results 30 companies signed contracts with the unified purchaser of electric power of renewable energy sources (the settlement-financial center) for 15 years for total capacity of 804.3 MW and 12 companies are at the stage of signing contracts with the settlement-financial center for total capacity of 162.89 MW.

Besides, it is necessary to note that on the basis of auction participants rates for power supply of wind power stations of were reduced in average by 10.6%, of small hydro power stations – by 14.5%, of solar power stations – by 36%. Whereas maximum reduction of rates under individual projects was for solar power stations – 51%, wind and hydro power stations – 23%.

On the 27th of November 2019 the first project auction was carried out for 50 MW solar power station in Otyrar district of Turkestan region, in suburbs of Shaulder village, land plot area is 100 ha.

7 companies from 6 countries took part in the auction: Kazakhstan, Germany, Italy, China, Netherlands and Russia. Maximum auction price – 29 KZT/kWh – decreased by 2.3 times in the course of commercial session. The winner of the auction selling was Arm Wind LLP with a price of 12.49 KZT/kWh, which is approximately equal to 3.2 cents of US dollar.

#year 2020#renewable power sources#green power industry#Ministry for power industry #Republic of Kazakhstan Ministry for power industry