$1 Billion Going into 2 Wind Farms in Kazakhstan

A consortium of renewable energy companies is looking to put $1 billion into two wind farms in southern Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, especially its southern region, relies quite a bit on imported electricity — these projects would be a tremendous help in giving it more energy independence.

Investors are expecting that 600 MW of capacity will be created from the two wind farms (400 MW at Zhanatas and 200 MW at Shokpar). Both projects will be in the Zhambyl region and the construction time frame for the projects is expected to be about 2 years.

“Central Asia Green Power, a joint venture between Kazakh private equity company Visor Group and the Turkish subsidiary of Italy’s Relight Group, would undertake a feasibility study into the project,” Robin Paxton of Reuters reports. Central Asia Green Power and state grid company KEGOC recently signed a memorandum detailing the plans.

Kazakhstan has considerable oil and uranium resources (it is looking to develop a nuclear fuel cycle based on its uranium reserves), but it also has great areas for generating wind energy, particularly in this region of the country, which has to get a huge amount of its electricity from other areas.

“In southern parts of the country, Kazakhstan is energy deficient. They have to import energy from other parts of Kazakhstan and from the other side of the border,” said Visor Group director Imraan Mohammed.

“This project will help the region to become energy self-sufficient.”

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• U.S. Wind Energy 2010 Summary

Images via Irene2005