Kazakhstan Sets Prices for Energy From Renewable Sources

Kazakhstan’s government set tariffs for energy produced by renewables in a bid to get 3 percent of electricity from cleaner sources by 2020.

The move will help Kazakhstan cut carbon emissions by 40 percent in 2050 from 2012 level, the ministry said.

Energy produced by solar plants was valued at 34.61 tenge, Kapparov said. The price will rise to 70 tenge if solar panels produced in Kazakhstan are bought and plant’s capacity is not more than 37 megawatt, he said.

The rates are set for the next 15 years, with annual adjustments for inflation, Kapparov said.

Kazakhstan capped the capacity it’s seeking from renewables at 1,900 megawatts by 2020 and will reject proposals that come in over that level, Interfax cited Kapparov as saying today.

The price of 1 kilowatt-hour for energy produced by wind power plants was set at 22.68 tenge (12 U.S. cents), Environment and Water Resources Minister Nurlan Kapparov told reporters in Astana today. The price for 1 kilowatt-hour produced by small hydro-power plants is 16.71 tenge, and from biogas plants it’s 32.23 tenge, Kapparov said, according an e-mail from the ministry.

Kazakhstan, the largest oil producer in Central Asia, needs to spend an average $3.2 billion a year along with investors to push the nation toward its green goals by 2050, the ministry said in September. The government plans to spend about a quarter of that sum itself.