YEREVAN

Armenia opened its first solar power plant, complete with a sun tracking system, on the shore of Lake Sevan, opening up fresh prospects for the country’s energy diversification.

The new solar plant, boasting more than 14,000 double-glazed panels, has a peak power of 5,787 kW with an annual output of 12.3 million kWh. Its sun tracking system makes the facility capable of storing a huge amount of energy. Commissioned by the Tufenkian Foundation, the plant was built by the U.S. Optimum Energy Company, with financial backing from ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank, a leading bank in Armenia for agriculture financing.

It’s a step towards energy diversification that the South Caucasus country badly needs. With a population of about 3 million, Armenia imports oil and gas to cover 75 percent of its energy needs. Its current energy policy is focused on developing indigenous energy sources, mainly renewables, and on replacing the country’s main nuclear reactor. Government officials say that the need for energy security and reliability have made energy efficiency has become a bigger policy priority.

Armenia is part of the EU4Energy programme, an initiative focused on evidence-based policymaking for the energy sector.

The Tufenkian Foundation is led by a U.S entrepreneur of Armenian origin James Tufenkian, and focuses on projects addressing social, economic, cultural, and environmental challenges facing Armenia. The foundation built its first solar power plant at Avan Marag Tsapatagh Hotel. The Sevan plant was built with ACBA Bank and a member of the financial group ACBA Leasing,  after studying similar projects in China and Spain.

“The project was developed to serve the hotel, which inspired us and suggested a new direction in the development of the energy sector and we built a more powerful plant,”  Hovhannes Poghosyan, Deputy Director of Tufenkian Hospitality Company, said.

While solar power provides a route to energy diversification, experts say that Armenia’s most advanced renewable energy technology is in the hydropower sector, both in the use of large-scale hydropower plants and the more recent installation of small run-of-the-river hydropower plants. The total installed capacity of all hydropower systems is 1,293 megawatts.