Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, Elnur Soltanov, said on Thursday that billions of dollars will be needed to build a green energy corridor sending electricity from Azerbaijan to Europe through an undersea cable across the Black Sea.
He told Trend that a feasibility study had confirmed the project’s technical and economic viability. Soltanov said Azerbaijan, an oil producer for about 150 years and a natural gas producer after independence, should become a green energy country in the 21st century because of its renewable resources, particularly offshore wind that can be scaled up. He said the study showed Azerbaijani renewable power could be supplied westward to European countries in the same way as oil and gas.
Soltanov recalled a joint venture involving Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary. He said the idea and the concept were followed by the feasibility study, and the next step is to decide how to implement the project and to identify funding, including from international financial institutions. He stressed that work of this scale requires investments worth billions of dollars and several years, and said partners should keep a strategic outlook rather than expect quick results.
On 17 December 2022, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary signed a strategic partnership agreement for a 1,000-megawatt undersea power cable stretching 1,195 kilometres across the Black Sea. The cable is intended to carry green electricity generated in Azerbaijan and Georgia to Romania, and from there to Hungary and other European countries, expanding European access to renewable resources in the Caucasus.
In September 2024, Romania’s transmission system operator Transelectrica, Georgian State Electrosystem, Azerbaijan’s AzerEnerji and Hungary’s MVM established a joint venture to implement the Black Sea undersea cable project.