Final November, when Azerbaijan hosted COP29, the United Nations’ annual local weather summit, it was a kind of coming-out celebration for the nation. Organizers wished to showcase how their small nation of almost 11 million, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, had developed over its three a long time of independence and was able to play a task on this planet’s energy transition.
Held in Baku’s Olympic Stadium, COP29’s headline talks had been largely a flop. The U.N. did not persuade developed international locations to decide to giving growing ones over US$1 trillion yearly. However in a side room away from media consideration, a unique 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 clean energy within the Caucasus area, run the electrical energy via a cable alongside the underside of the Black Sea, and ship it to Europe. The international locations hope to complete a primary section of the challenge, comprising two cables with a capability of 1.3 GW, by 2030. That will be sufficient to provide over 2 million European households. This green energy hall might assist shore up energy security within the European Union, changing the Russian natural gas that Europe used to import. It might assist the E.U. meet
its increasingly strict emissions targets. And the hall might increase financial ties between Europe and its neighbors, supporters of the plan say.
However the bold challenge 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 this planet. In the intervening time, the Caucasus nations don’t produce sufficient renewable electrical energy to export it, so that they must construct at the very 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 very important undersea cables elsewhere in Europe have not too long ago 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 possible organized by Russia, and referred to as it a new and growing risk for undersea infrastructure.
In brief, the architects of the inexperienced hall face vital and diverse obstacles. But when they succeed, it is going to mark a daring feat of engineering to spice up clear vitality and combat 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 energy 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 spiritual 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 gas proved instrumental in lifting Azerbaijan out of post-Communist poverty. Fossil fuels nonetheless characterize
90 percent of Azerbaijan’s exports and up to 50 percent of its GDP, in line with the International Energy Agency.
Masdar’s 230-MW Garadagh plant, the primary utility-scale solar farm in Azerbaijan, serves as an early signal of the nation’s vitality transition.Masdar
Over the previous decade, although, Azerbaijan has tried to inexperienced up its vitality sector. In 2016, for instance, the nation
set a goal of sourcing 20 % of its vitality from renewables by 2020. However it fell far short of that objective, main observers to wonder if the petrostate was critical or simply participating in greenwashing.
Azerbaijan’s first vital step towards its clear vitality 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 solar 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. Web site supervisor
Kamil Manafov works from a management room that also smells like new constructing supplies, the place giant wall-mounted screens show the plant’s minute-by-minute efficiency. “I grew up within the closest village to right here, Gobustan,” Manafov informed 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 find out how 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 country would build 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 few of the added electrical energy can be used domestically, whereas a lot can be despatched overseas.
To develop its renewable vitality technology, Azerbaijan is usually banking on wind power, which received’t shock anybody who’s frolicked in Baku and felt the fierce wind that always blows via it.
A 2022 road 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 challenge, a 240-MW plant within the japanese areas of Khizi and Absheron, is beneath building and expected to be operational by subsequent 12 months. Three more solar and wind plants, totaling 1 GW, are additionally beneath growth.
A lot of the cash and experience for these tasks comes from overseas. Masdar, a United Arab Emirates state-owned firm that develops green-energy tasks, secured the funding for and continues to operate the Garadagh plant. Acwa Energy, an energy-development firm based mostly in Saudi Arabia, holds the same role within the Khizi–Absheron wind plant. To this point, the 2 have introduced they’ll make investments over $6 billion whole in Azerbaijan’s green-energy tasks.
Masdar alone might be sure that the president’s guarantees are stored: The corporate
aims to develop 10 GW of unpolluted vitality by 2030, together with the tasks in progress. “On this area we’ve got numerous potential that’s untapped,” says Maryam Al Mazrouei, Masdar’s head of enterprise growth 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 few of the tasks characterize extra than simply clear energy. The vitality big BP and the Azerbaijani authorities hosted
a signing ceremony at COP29 for the 240-MW Shafag photo voltaic plant, which can 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 can be developed as a carbon-neutral “green energy 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 would like.” The plant’s identify, Shafag, means “dawn” in Azerbaijani—the plant will produce solar power, sure, but it surely’s additionally a brand new begin for the area.
The Flame Towers in Baku symbolize the nation’s vitality assets and historic historical past of fireplace worship. In November, Baku hosted the twenty ninth annual United Nations Climate Change Convention. Emad Aljumah/Getty Photos
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 Photos
As a result of the Caucasus green-energy hall guarantees higher grid stability by diversifying electrical energy sources, higher commerce connections, and assist with the vitality transition, Azerbaijan’s neighbors are vying to be included. Bulgaria desires in, as does Armenia.
Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan stay excessive, nevertheless. The E.U. want to embrace Armenia within the Black Sea vitality challenge however Azerbaijani officers have reportedly stated they’ll 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 electricity trade that includes laying a transmission cable lots of of kilometers throughout the Caspian Sea. Uzbekistan has built solar and wind plants totaling 3.5 GW and is growing 24 GW extra, with plans to export a lot of it to Europe. This may successfully make a green-energy megagrid working all the best way from the middle of Asia to Europe’s Atlantic coast.
Black Sea Energy Hyperlink
Even when all of this new power generation 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 existing undersea power 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 slightly deeper than any present subsea electrical energy cable on this planet.
A primary section of the Black Sea challenge might carry 1.3 GW, lower than 1 / 4 of the challenge’s aspirational 6 GW.
A feasibility study finalized at COP29 and carried out by CESI, an Italian engineering consultancy, concluded the primary section of the challenge 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 prevailing grid there. The electrical energy delivered would circulation into Hungary and the remainder of Europe from there. A possible second section would develop the undersea line to between 4 and 6 GW.
Laying the Black Sea line presents a formidable engineering problem. Solely two firms on this 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 considered one of solely two firms on this planet which have put in deep-sea energy cables.Nexans
Ship crews can lay round 10 km of cable per day; once they get to the tip of a section, employees referred to 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 putting and even transporting them is more difficult. Just one,200 km of this type of cable are manufactured annually globally, and with buyer demand from different tasks, it is going to take three to 4 years simply to supply sufficient for the Black Sea challenge.
As if all of that isn’t tough sufficient, the Black Sea
is littered with floating mines positioned by each Ukraine and Russia throughout their ongoing warfare. A few of the mines flow into across the sea, ending up in unpredictable locations, including Romanian beaches. 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 challenge. This previous Christmas, an undersea energy cable connecting Finland and Estonia was partially severed, and
Finnish investigators said the injury possible resulted from an oil tanker dragging its anchor. The E.U.’s head of overseas affairs stated the ship was a part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a gaggle of lots of of vessels which are formally impartial 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
were severed in November, and Western governments suggested that Moscow directed the assault. Russia allegedly has been gathering information and building such capabilities for at the very least a few years.
Vitality-industry observers say they’re involved that the Black Sea green-energy cable, which successfully sidelines Russia by offering a substitute for its pure fuel, might stoke a focused assault. If insurers are spooked by this chance, they could refuse to cowl the cable, which might scotch the challenge earlier than it begins.
Undersea Cable Might Increase E.U. Vitality Safety
The thought for the Black Sea cable emerged a couple of 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 revealed a research discovering that the cable may very well be financially productive. The subsequent 12 months, USAID and the
United States Energy Association discovered that it made technical sense. However the bold concept didn’t garner robust political or monetary help. “Often, these tasks require some political backing,” says
Agha Bayramov, an vitality geopolitics researcher on the College of Groningen, in the Netherlands. “What nice energy will help it?”
The challenge 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
cutting the amount of natural gas 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 gas emissions. The outcome: Europe wanted different sources of vitality.
Azerbaijan hopes to generate gigawatts of renewable electrical energy and ship it throughout the Black Sea to Europe.
The E.U. compensated by
increasing gas imports from different international locations, similar to Norway and the United States, and by reducing its fuel consumption total. However over the long run, to fulfill its local weather targets, the continent will want entry to much more clean energy, making the concept of the Black Sea cable challenge much more interesting.
In December 2022, leaders from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Hungary, and Romania signed a memorandum of understanding on growing the inexperienced hall. On the signing ceremony, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission,
voiced strong support for the challenge. 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 is just not but assured, and extra can be wanted. To that finish, Georgia and Romania purpose to get the cable designated a
Project of Mutual Interest, 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 traces connecting Azerbaijan to the Black Sea will run via Georgia.
One other key gatekeeper is
SOCAR, which oversees the nation’s vitality infrastructure and serves as a contractor for its renewable-energy tasks. The corporate’s Baku headquarters sit in a modern, curving, 42-story tower constructed to resist 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 huge green-energy targets 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 vitality in 30 years is just not simple,” he says. “Oil and fuel are the cornerstone of our financial system. Each household has somebody working on this {industry}. We’re attempting to maintain the steadiness.”
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