Final November, when Azerbaijan hosted COP29, the United Nations’ annual local weather summit, it was a form of coming-out social gathering for the nation. Organizers wished to showcase how their small nation of almost 11 million, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, had advanced over its three many years of independence and was able to play a task on the planet’s power transition.
Held in Baku’s Olympic Stadium, COP29’s headline talks had been largely a flop. The U.N. didn’t persuade developed international locations to decide to giving creating ones over US$1 trillion yearly. However in a facet room away from media consideration, a distinct local weather dialogue concluded extra auspiciously.
There, delegations from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Hungary, and Romania finalized an bold plan: to generate as much as 6 gigawatts of clear power within the Caucasus area, run the electrical energy by means of a cable alongside the underside of the Black Sea, and ship it to Europe. The international locations hope to complete a primary part of the venture, comprising two cables with a capability of 1.3 GW, by 2030. That will be sufficient to produce over 2 million European households. This inexperienced power hall might assist shore up power safety within the European Union, changing the Russian pure gasoline that Europe used to import. It might assist the E.U. meet
its more and more strict emissions targets. And the hall might increase financial ties between Europe and its neighbors, supporters of the plan say.
However the bold venture faces main obstacles. The Black Sea is sort of 1,200 kilometers lengthy, and the proposed undersea energy cable would wish to run the size of it, making it the longest and deepest on the planet. In the mean time, the Caucasus nations don’t produce sufficient renewable electrical energy to export it, so that they must construct at the least 3 times extra capability. Each of those efforts would take an enormous, not-yet-secured monetary funding.
What’s extra, safety issues within the Black Sea might endanger the cable and the specialised ships that may lay it down. Floating mines used within the ongoing Ukraine warfare already pose a danger to ships in these waters. And important undersea cables elsewhere in Europe have just lately been focused, together with an influence line beneath the Baltic Sea that
was severed in December. Western authorities authorities deemed it an act of sabotage probably organized by Russia, and known as it a new and rising danger for undersea infrastructure.
Briefly, the architects of the inexperienced hall face vital and diversified obstacles. But when they succeed, it would mark a daring feat of engineering to spice up clear power and battle local weather.
Azerbaijan’s Pivot From Oil to Photo voltaic and Wind
Of the six international locations that make up the Caucasus area, Azerbaijan boasts the biggest potential for producing exportable renewable power for Europe, a incontrovertible fact that presents some measure of irony. Azerbaijan constructed its financial system on its plentiful fossil fuels. Methane naturally seeps out of the bottom in some locations, feeding
ever-burning fires that in historic instances stoked Zoroastrian non secular beliefs and earned Azerbaijan the nickname “the land of fireplace.”
In 1846, Baku, the nation’s capital, was the positioning of the world’s first mechanically drilled oil properly, and by the flip of the twentieth century, the nation equipped greater than half of the world’s oil. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, manufacturing and export of oil and gasoline proved instrumental in lifting Azerbaijan out of post-Communist poverty. Fossil fuels nonetheless characterize
90 % of Azerbaijan’s exports and as much as 50 % of its GDP, in response to the Worldwide Vitality Company.
Masdar’s 230-MW Garadagh plant, the primary utility-scale photo voltaic farm in Azerbaijan, serves as an early signal of the nation’s power transition.Masdar
Over the previous decade, although, Azerbaijan has tried to inexperienced up its power sector. In 2016, for instance, the nation
set a objective of sourcing 20 % of its power from renewables by 2020. But it surely fell far quick of that objective, main observers to wonder if the petrostate was severe or simply participating in greenwashing.
Azerbaijan’s first vital step towards its clear power objective was
the completion, in 2023, of the Garadagh photo voltaic plant, about an hour’s drive from Baku. The plant sits in a bowl-shaped patch of dry scrubland ringed by hills, empty aside from the occasional shepherd passing together with his flock. The plant’s photo voltaic panels run in lengthy rows over the gently sloped terrain. Each minute or so, the quiet is damaged by a mechanical whir, as motors routinely reposition the panels to trace the solar’s path throughout the sky.
The plant provides as much as 230 megawatts of energy to Azerbaijan’s grid. Website supervisor
Kamil Manafov works from a management room that also smells like new constructing supplies, the place massive wall-mounted screens show the plant’s minute-by-minute efficiency. “I grew up within the closest village to right here, Gobustan,” Manafov advised IEEE Spectrum throughout a go to in November. Now, the village attracts energy partially from the Garadagh plant, and college teams come to Garadagh nearly each week to learn the way photo voltaic vegetation work in apply, he says.
Azerbaijan’s Vitality Transition
At his welcome-to-COP29 speech, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev proclaimed that
the nation would construct 6 GW of renewable-energy capability by 2030, and that it has agreements to construct a complete of 10 GW—far past the 1.7 GW the nation at the moment generates. A number of the added electrical energy could be used domestically, whereas a lot could be despatched overseas.
To increase its renewable power era, Azerbaijan is generally banking on wind energy, which received’t shock anybody who’s frolicked in Baku and felt the fierce wind that always blows by means of it.
A 2022 highway map from the World Financial institution, the Worldwide Finance Corp., and Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Vitality estimated that the nation might realistically set up 7 GW of offshore wind energy within the Caspian Sea by 2040.
On shore, Azerbaijan’s first main wind-power venture, a 240-MW plant within the japanese areas of Khizi and Absheron, is beneath development and anticipated to be operational by subsequent 12 months. Three extra photo voltaic and wind vegetation, totaling 1 GW, are additionally beneath improvement.
A lot of the cash and experience for these initiatives comes from overseas. Masdar, a United Arab Emirates state-owned firm that develops green-energy initiatives, secured the funding for and continues to function the Garadagh plant. Acwa Energy, an energy-development firm based mostly in Saudi Arabia, holds the identical position within the Khizi–Absheron wind plant. To this point, the 2 have introduced they are going to make investments over $6 billion complete in Azerbaijan’s green-energy initiatives.
Masdar alone might make sure that the president’s guarantees are saved: The corporate
goals to develop 10 GW of unpolluted power by 2030, together with the initiatives in progress. “On this area now we have numerous potential that’s untapped,” says Maryam Al Mazrouei, Masdar’s head of enterprise improvement for a lot of the previous Soviet Union, who spoke with IEEE Spectrum on the U.A.E.’s pavilion at COP29. “The assets and infrastructure can be found, and there’s the need to do it.”
A number of the initiatives characterize extra than simply clear energy. The power big BP and the Azerbaijani authorities hosted
a signing ceremony at COP29 for the 240-MW Shafag photo voltaic plant, which will likely be constructed close to Jabrayil, about 350 km southwest of Baku. The city was destroyed and deserted throughout Azerbaijan’s latest warfare with the Armenia-backed breakaway area of Nagorno-Karabakh. Throughout preventing in 2020, Azerbaijan retook the land, and in 2021 the federal government declared that the area could be developed as a carbon-neutral “inexperienced power zone.”
Areas razed by warfare are like a “a clean white paper,” says
Orkhan Huseynov, a spokesman for SOCAR, the State Oil Firm of the Republic of Azerbaijan. “We will write no matter we wish.” The plant’s identify, Shafag, means “dawn” in Azerbaijani—the plant will produce solar energy, sure, but it surely’s additionally a brand new begin for the area.
The Flame Towers in Baku symbolize the nation’s power assets and historic historical past of fireplace worship. In November, Baku hosted the twenty ninth annual United Nations Local weather Change Convention. Emad Aljumah/Getty Photographs
The Yanar Dağ, a natural-gas fireplace, repeatedly blazes on a hillside on the Absheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea, close to Baku. It stoked fireplace worship in historic instances.Stephen Anthony Rohan/Getty Photographs
As a result of the Caucasus green-energy hall guarantees larger grid stability by diversifying electrical energy sources, higher commerce connections, and assist with the power transition, Azerbaijan’s neighbors are vying to be included. Bulgaria needs in, as does Armenia.
Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan stay excessive, nevertheless. The E.U. wish to embody Armenia within the Black Sea power venture however Azerbaijani officers have reportedly mentioned they are going to admit Armenia provided that it indicators a peace treaty affirming the standing of Nagorno-Karabakh. This may quantity to Armenia accepting defeat and outcome within the departure of ethnic Armenians from the disputed territory.
In the meantime, Azerbaijan and its neighbors to the east—Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan—are planning a
cross-border electrical energy commerce that entails laying a transmission cable tons of of kilometers throughout the Caspian Sea. Uzbekistan has constructed photo voltaic and wind vegetation totaling 3.5 GW and is creating 24 GW extra, with plans to export a lot of it to Europe. This may successfully make a green-energy megagrid working all the way in which from the middle of Asia to Europe’s Atlantic coast.
Black Sea Energy Hyperlink
Even when all of this new energy era will get constructed, organizers of the Caucasus green-energy hall will nonetheless have to maneuver the electrical energy throughout an enormous physique of water into Europe. The
longest current undersea energy cable carries 1.4 GW throughout a 720-km stretch of the North Sea between England and Norway, at depths of as much as 700 meters. The Black Sea energy hyperlink, in contrast, would traverse over 1,100 km of water, at depths as much as 2,200 meters, which might make it barely deeper than any current subsea electrical energy cable on the planet.
A primary part of the Black Sea venture might carry 1.3 GW, lower than 1 / 4 of the venture’s aspirational 6 GW.
A feasibility examine finalized at COP29 and performed by CESI, an Italian engineering consultancy, concluded the primary part of the venture was doable and would price $3.1 to three.7 billion. The road would run from Anaklia, Georgia, on the east finish of the Black Sea, to Constanța, Romania, on the west finish, and would require some new infrastructure to attach it to the present grid there. The electrical energy delivered would circulation into Hungary and the remainder of Europe from there. A possible second part would increase the undersea line to between 4 and 6 GW.
Laying the Black Sea line presents a formidable engineering problem. Solely two firms on the planet—
Prysmian, based mostly in Milan, and Nexans in Paris—have put in this type of deep-sea electrical cable. They each use particular ships that carry as much as 13,000 tonnes of cable in segments as much as 200-km lengthy and wrapped round big spools as much as 30 meters in diameter.
The Nexans cable-laying vessel can carry as much as 13,000 tonnes of cable on spool-like turntables. Nexans, based mostly in Paris, is one among solely two firms on the planet which have put in deep-sea energy cables.Nexans
Ship crews can lay round 10 km of cable per day; after they get to the tip of a section, staff known as jointers join one section to the following by manually welding collectively every of the cables’ many layers. Whereas telecommunications cables have been laid in
trenches 8-km deep, energy cables are a lot thicker and heavier, so inserting and even transporting them is more difficult. Only one,200 km of this type of cable are manufactured annually globally, and with buyer demand from different initiatives, it would take three to 4 years simply to supply sufficient for the Black Sea venture.
As if all of that isn’t tough sufficient, the Black Sea
is plagued by floating mines positioned by each Ukraine and Russia throughout their ongoing warfare. A number of the mines flow into across the sea, ending up in unpredictable locations, together with Romanian seashores. The mines are sparse sufficient that commerce within the Black Sea has nearly returned to prewar ranges, however ships are nonetheless in danger.
Intentional sabotage of undersea cables—a brand new form of risk—additionally hangs over the venture. This previous Christmas, an undersea energy cable connecting Finland and Estonia was partially severed, and
Finnish investigators mentioned the harm probably resulted from an oil tanker dragging its anchor. The E.U.’s head of overseas affairs mentioned the ship was a part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a bunch of tons of of vessels which can be formally unbiased however allegedly take orders from the Kremlin.
That wasn’t the one incident of sabotage. Two fiber-optic communications cables working beneath the Baltic Sea
had been severed in November, and Western governments advised that Moscow directed the assault. Russia allegedly has been gathering data and constructing such capabilities for at the least a few years.
Vitality-industry observers say they’re involved that the Black Sea green-energy cable, which successfully sidelines Russia by offering an alternative choice to its pure gasoline, might stoke a focused assault. If insurers are spooked by this risk, they could refuse to cowl the cable, which might scotch the venture earlier than it begins.
Undersea Cable Might Increase E.U. Vitality Safety
The thought for the Black Sea cable emerged a few decade in the past amongst grid operators and consultants within the Black Sea area. It piqued curiosity in energy-policy circles, and in 2020, the World Financial institution printed a examine discovering that the cable could possibly be financially productive. The subsequent 12 months, USAID and the
United States Vitality Affiliation discovered that it made technical sense. However the bold concept didn’t garner sturdy political or monetary help. “Normally, these initiatives require some political backing,” says
Agha Bayramov, an power geopolitics researcher on the College of Groningen, in the Netherlands. “What nice energy will help it?”
The venture inadvertently discovered that nice energy with the beginning of the Ukraine warfare. When Russia invaded in February 2022, the E.U. severely sanctioned the nation, which responded by
chopping the quantity of pure gasoline it sends to Europe by 55 % in 2022 and by 81 % in 2023. On the identical time, the E.U. had set demanding new targets for reducing greenhouse gasoline emissions. The outcome: Europe wanted various sources of power.
Azerbaijan hopes to generate gigawatts of renewable electrical energy and ship it throughout the Black Sea to Europe.
The E.U. compensated by
rising gasoline imports from different international locations, equivalent to Norway and the United States, and by reducing its gasoline consumption total. However over the long run, to fulfill its local weather objectives, the continent will want entry to rather more clear power, making the concept of the Black Sea cable venture much more interesting.
In December 2022, leaders from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Hungary, and Romania signed a memorandum of understanding on creating the inexperienced hall. On the signing ceremony, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Fee,
voiced sturdy help for the venture. An E.U. commissioner tweeted the identical month that the union anticipated to contribute an estimated €2.3 billion ($2.5 billion) for the cable.
However that cash will not be but assured, and extra will likely be wanted. To that finish, Georgia and Romania purpose to get the cable designated a
Mission of Mutual Curiosity, making it a precedence for the E.U. and doubtlessly unlocking billions in funding. “Psychologically it’s very, excellent to get that standing,” says Zviad Gachechiladze, one of many plan’s architects and a director at Georgian State Electrosystem, the nation’s grid operator. Transmission strains connecting Azerbaijan to the Black Sea will run by means of Georgia.
One other key gatekeeper is
SOCAR, which oversees the nation’s power infrastructure and serves as a contractor for its renewable-energy initiatives. The corporate’s Baku headquarters sit in a contemporary, curving, 42-story tower constructed to face up to wind speeds as much as 190 kilometers per hour.
On the finish of 2023, SOCAR created a subsidiary, SOCAR Inexperienced, to implement the nation’s renewable-energy plans. However clearly, Azerbaijan’s massive green-energy objectives stay subordinate to fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Spectrum met with SOCAR spokesman Orkhan Huseynov within the SOCAR Tower, its metal exterior gleaming on a cool, but not uncomfortably windy day. “We do really feel local weather change. The extent of the Caspian is falling. The rivers have much less water,” says Huseynov. However “making the change to inexperienced power in 30 years will not be simple,” he says. “Oil and gasoline are the cornerstone of our financial system. Each household has somebody working on this {industry}. We’re attempting to maintain the stability.”
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