Turkmenistan plans to build solar power stations and wind farms
Turkmenistan is starting to implement the State Program on Energy Saving for 2018-2024, which also provides for an increase in the role of alternative energy sources. In this regard, the construction of solar power stations in areas with the greatest number of sunny days over year as well as launching of a biogas plants for processing solid waste and installation of industrial wind generators at most suitable sites are planned. The introduction of renewable energy into the industry will rationalize the use of natural resources of the country, increase efficiency and accelerate the rate of sustainable economic development by use of industrial and agricultural waste as raw materials for recycling. An increase in the share of the use of “clean” energy will favorably affect the environmental situation in the region and will reduce harmful emissions to the atmosphere, which will be one of the key steps to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate signed by Turkmenistan in September 2016. The specialists of the Institute of Solar Energy of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan are engaged in issues on alternative energy and on studying the ways of its introduction into the national economy. According to the institute, the average annual intensity of solar radiation in Turkmenistan is 600 watts per square meter, which will allow one solar power plant with an area of several tens of meters to produce more than 14 billion kilowatt-hours of energy per year. According to estimates made in 2016, the annual electricity production in the country, renewable sources excluded, should reach 26 billion and 380 million kilowatt-hours by 2020. Thus, if at least one solar power plant to be commissioned in Turkmenistan by that time, this figure may increase up to 35 percent or more.
