The biggest infrastructure project Azerbaijan will undertake within the next two years will not be a pipeline but rather a power line. Construction of this project starts in Q2 2026 on an overhead transmission line of 235 kilometres in length and 500 kilovolts in voltage from the substation of the Azerbaijan Thermal Power Plant to the Navoi (Navai) substation, which is a World Bank-funded grid infrastructure project that will cut through eight districts, 64 settlements, and 44 pastures. This project does not transport oil or gas. What this project will deliver once it is completed in Q4 2027 is the ability to distribute electricity produced by wind and solar farms to the national grid system, which must be entirely reconstructed for Azerbaijan to become an exporter of green energy.

The transmission line will form part of the Azerbaijan Renewable Energy Expansion project, otherwise known as AZURE, being financed by the World Bank, along with grid expansion in both the 330kV and 500kV grids and connection of the Absheron-Garadagh wind power station. Unlike solar parks or wind turbines, which can be photogenic, the transmission line is 'inherently unglamorous'. However, the AZURE project is much more crucial in the view of any energy expert analyzing the transition in the Caspian. Azerbaijan's renewable energy capacity, estimated at 135 gigawatts onshore and 157 gigawatts offshore in the Caspian Sea according to the Ministry of Energy, has never been the limiting factor. The limiting factor has always been the grid infrastructure needed to transport this electricity from the windy Absheron peninsula and sunny Bilasuvar plains to the domestic market and eventually the European market, 3,000 kilometers away.

AZURE Project's activities

To understand the significance of such a line in a 500kV capacity, it is necessary to examine the present power grid in Azerbaijan. As the existing infrastructure is the product of the Soviet era, it was specifically designed to serve a hydrocarbons-based energy industry; this meant that electricity generation was concentrated at centralised coal and gas plants, transmission lines were built around these plants, and the distribution lines were designed to carry power in only one direction from the generation facilities to end-users. However, renewable energy is an altogether different type of resource. Not only is it diffuse, weather-dependent, and scattered all over the Absheron peninsula, the Caspian Sea shallows, and southern........

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