OREANDA-NEWS. January 29, 2010. The country’s first producer of power with use of wind energy broke out white flag.

Well-informed sources say that wine power plant operating in Khizi region has already applied to the government wit a request to change a wholesale tariff for electricity for it.

“The plan experiences problems when making settlements with national power operator Azerenerji that is ready to accept electricity from the plant on valid wholesale tariff of 0.041 manats per 1 kWh. But that does not cover plant’s costs.

Earlier when Sumgait electric network was run by private operator, this issue found its solution between the plant and operator. Azerenerji, as a new operator and fully state-run organization does not want to agree on non-transparent mutual settlements and has not right for that.

As a result, plant’s investors applied to the Azerbaijani government to raise the wholesale tariff for electricity in the country at least up to 0.07 manats per kWh,” a source said.

Such tariff exceeds country’s retail tariff of 0.06 manats by 16.7%.

“Even if this request is satisfied, it will hardly help the wind power plant. The point is that period of wind power plant’s service is 25 years and period of its recoupment is 20 years. Profit that can be received for five “free” years will not cover costs for delivery of fan blades for wind plants (by the way, Azerbaijan has not a port able to receive them) and organization of the plant itself,” the source said.

To find a way form the situation it is suggested to organize manufacture of fan blades for wind power plants in Azerbaijan.

“This is not a way as well, as the country has neither appropriate manufacturing equipment nor relevant culture of manufacture,” the source said.

The Khizi project of wind power plant was realized by Azerbaijan’s Temirmasin (Remontmashin) and Germany’s Nordwind Energieanlagen GmbH.

The project includes construction of six wind power plants in Azerbaijan with overall capacity of 13,200 MWt/hour.