Every megawatt-hour of energy that will be consumed in Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur will be obtained only from renewable energy sources, Javid Abdullayev, director of the Azerbaijan Renewable Energy Agency under the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, told an interview with Report.

He recalled that the liberated territories have been declared Green Energy Zones: “With the involvement of an international consulting company, the Green Energy Zone concept was developed for those areas and was considered acceptable. Based on it, the Action Plan was approved by a special decree of the Cabinet of Ministers. One of the gratifying circumstances is that the Action Plan was fully included in the ‘I State Program on the Great Return to the liberated territories of Azerbaijan’. All measures are reflected there, and these processes are considered within the framework of the implementation of the State Program.”

According to Abdullayev, equipping public buildings with solar panels and using renewable energy-based equipment for lighting roads and streets, parking lots, and other green energy concepts are also envisaged: “In buildings without gas supplies, of course, the installation of certain devices for the purchase of excess heat energy and the application of certain approaches for the purchase of hot water are envisaged. A special Working Group was created to coordinate and monitor all these processes. The chairmanship of that Working Group is also held by the State Renewable Energy Agency.”

“At the same time, the monitoring plan has already been approved in all areas. Monitoring has been carried out since the second half of last year. Specific scores for the application of green technologies were calculated for each monitored area. They have been classified, and the positive solutions in each have been presented to the others,” the director said.

Abdullayev noted that, in particular, the Coordination and Monitoring Working Group, under the leadership of the Ministry of Energy, holds a meeting at least once every quarter: “There, these issues are discussed, and if there are any deficiencies or delays in the process, they are identified and urgently eliminated so that the liberated territories can be fully transformed into Green Energy Zones. Obviously, every megawatt-hour of energy that will be consumed there will be obtained only from renewable energy sources. We have sufficient energy potential in Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur. Other projects are also on the agenda, whether it is Khudafarin, Giz Galasi hydroelectric power stations, or the 240 MW Shafaq project in Jabrayil, which is implemented with BP. We will probably witness serious information about them this year. In this regard, the application of green technologies in the liberated territories is very successful.”