Aliev orders to increase the share of renewable energy in Azerbaijan's consumption

Within six months to come, Azerbaijan should draft its strategy for using renewable sources of energy for 2012-2020, which would allow bringing the share of renewable sources up to 20 percent in total country's energy consumption. This order was signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev.

The choice of the year 2020 is not accidental: by that time the European Union plans to reach the level of 20 percent in the use of alternative energy sources in the overall power consumption, the "Trend" reports.

"I believe that we'll prepare the strategy well before the deadline. Our Agency has already worked on the aims of strategic development; and we know the directions of future work," said Melikov, Deputy Head of the State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources.

On December 1, Baku hosted a roundtable on the topic "On alternative and renewable sources of energy".

Rasul Suleimanov, Chairman of the Association of Energy Specialists and Engineers of Azerbaijan, has noted that after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which resulted in damaging the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), many European countries decided to abandon the use of nuclear power. However, later European specialists came to believe that a complete rejection of nuclear power will result in greater dependence on natural gas, Mr Suleimanov said in his interview to the "Echo" newspaper.