Final November, when Azerbaijan hosted COP29, the United Nations’ annual local weather summit, it was a kind of coming-out get together for the nation. Organizers needed to showcase how their small nation of practically 11 million, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, had developed over its three many years of independence and was able to play a task on the planet’s energy 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 growing ones over US$1 trillion yearly. However in a side 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 clean energy 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 undertaking, comprising two cables with a capability of 1.3 GW, by 2030. That might 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 enhance financial ties between Europe and its neighbors, supporters of the plan say.
However the bold undertaking 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, in order that they must construct not less than thrice extra capability. Each of those efforts would take a large, not-yet-secured monetary funding.
What’s extra, safety issues within the Black Sea might endanger the cable and the specialised ships that will 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 underneath the Baltic Sea that
was severed in December. Western authorities authorities deemed it an act of sabotage doubtless 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 important and various obstacles. But when they succeed, it is going to 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 most important potential for producing exportable renewable energy for Europe, a proven fact that presents some measure of irony. Azerbaijan constructed its economic system on its plentiful fossil fuels. Methane naturally seeps out of the bottom in some locations, feeding
ever-burning fires that in historic occasions stoked Zoroastrian spiritual beliefs and earned Azerbaijan the nickname “the land of fireplace.”
In 1846, Baku, the nation’s capital, was the location of the world’s first mechanically drilled oil effectively, and by the flip of the twentieth century, the nation provided 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 response to 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 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 goal of sourcing 20 p.c of its power from renewables by 2020. Nevertheless it fell far short of that aim, main observers to wonder if the petrostate was critical or simply partaking in greenwashing.
Azerbaijan’s first important step towards its clear power aim 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 along 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 mechanically 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 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 find out how photo voltaic vegetation work in follow, 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 presently generates. Among the added electrical energy can be used domestically, whereas a lot can be despatched overseas.
To broaden its renewable power technology, Azerbaijan is generally banking on wind power, which received’t shock anybody who’s hung out in Baku and felt the fierce wind that usually blows by means of 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 undertaking, a 240-MW plant within the jap areas of Khizi and Absheron, is underneath building and expected to be operational by subsequent yr. Three more solar and wind plants, totaling 1 GW, are additionally underneath 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 primarily based 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 make sure that the president’s guarantees are stored: The corporate
aims to develop 10 GW of unpolluted power by 2030, together with the tasks in progress. “On this area now we have a number of 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 may be the need to do it.”
Among the tasks characterize extra than simply clear energy. The power large BP and the Azerbaijani authorities hosted
a signing ceremony at COP29 for the 240-MW Shafag photo voltaic plant, which might be constructed close to Jabrayil, about 350 km southwest of Baku. The city was destroyed and deserted throughout Azerbaijan’s current warfare with the Armenia-backed breakaway area of Nagorno-Karabakh. Throughout combating 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 are able to write no matter we would like.” The plant’s identify, Shafag, means “dawn” in Azerbaijani—the plant will produce solar power, sure, nevertheless it’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 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 occasions.Stephen Anthony Rohan/Getty Photos
As a result of the Caucasus green-energy hall guarantees better 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, nonetheless. The E.U. want to embody Armenia within the Black Sea power undertaking however Azerbaijani officers have reportedly stated they’ll admit Armenia provided that it indicators a peace treaty affirming the standing of Nagorno-Karabakh. This is able to 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 is able to successfully make a green-energy megagrid operating 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 the planet.
A primary part of the Black Sea undertaking might carry 1.3 GW, lower than 1 / 4 of the undertaking’s aspirational 6 GW.
A feasibility study finalized at COP29 and performed by CESI, an Italian engineering consultancy, concluded the primary part of the undertaking 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 stream into Hungary and the remainder of Europe from there. A possible second part would broaden the undersea line to between 4 and 6 GW.
Laying the Black Sea line presents a formidable engineering problem. Solely two corporations on the planet—
Prysmian, primarily based in Milan, and Nexans in Paris—have put in this sort 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 large 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, primarily based in Paris, is considered one of solely two corporations 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 top of a phase, employees referred to as jointers join one phase to the subsequent 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. Just one,200 km of this sort of cable are manufactured annually globally, and with buyer demand from different tasks, it is going to take three to 4 years simply to provide sufficient for the Black Sea undertaking.
As if all of that isn’t troublesome sufficient, the Black Sea
is littered with floating mines positioned by each Ukraine and Russia throughout their ongoing warfare. Among 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 type of risk—additionally hangs over the undertaking. This previous Christmas, an undersea energy cable connecting Finland and Estonia was partially severed, and
Finnish investigators said the injury doubtless resulted from an oil tanker dragging its anchor. The E.U.’s head of international affairs stated the ship was a part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a bunch of lots of of vessels which are formally unbiased however allegedly take orders from the Kremlin.
That wasn’t the one incident of sabotage. Two fiber-optic communications cables operating underneath 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 not less than 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 risk, they could refuse to cowl the cable, which might scotch the undertaking earlier than it begins.
Undersea Cable May Enhance 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 revealed a research discovering that the cable could possibly be financially productive. The subsequent yr, USAID and the
United States Energy Association discovered that it made technical sense. However the bold thought didn’t garner robust political or monetary assist. “Often, these tasks require some political backing,” says
Agha Bayramov, an power geopolitics researcher on the College of Groningen, in the Netherlands. “What nice energy will assist it?”
The undertaking 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 p.c in 2022 and by 81 p.c in 2023. On the identical time, the E.U. had set demanding new targets for lowering greenhouse gas 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
increasing gas imports from different international locations, reminiscent of Norway and the United States, and by lowering its fuel consumption total. However over the long term, to fulfill its local weather targets, the continent will want entry to much more clean energy, making the thought of the Black Sea cable undertaking 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 undertaking. 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 might be wanted. To that finish, Georgia and Romania intention 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 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 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 massive 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 power in 30 years is just not straightforward,” he says. “Oil and fuel are the cornerstone of our economic system. Each household has somebody working on this {industry}. We’re attempting to maintain the steadiness.”
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