Belarus

Current Status of Wind Energy

Currently there are two wind turbines of total 850 kW installed capacity. The first 250 kW unit was installed two years ago, the second 600 kW unit July 2002. The second turbine was partly funded by the German Eldorado Program. The revenue from these turbines shall be used to fund resettlement projects for people suffering from the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe. A country wide wind-atlas is available, where 3 main areas with annual average wind speeds of 4 - 5 m/s at 30 m height were identified. In 1994 Belarus introduced a standard feed-in tariff for renewable generated electricity in a law modeled on Germany's Electricity Feed Law. Renewables electricity will be bought for about USD 0.08/ kWh compared with a consumer price for electricity in of just USD 0.012/kWh. The governments of Germany and Belarus have said that they want to promote alternative energy sources. Belarus has an industry association. No industry manufacturer was identified. Belarus has a poor potential for wind energy development from a technical point of view, but there are strong legal and economical incentives...more>>

Wind power resources

The main direction of the use of wind energy installations (WEI) in the nearest future will be for pump drive installations and for heating water for agriculture. These application areas have minimum requirements for the quality of electric power (stability of frequency and voltage), which allows for simple WEI and makes them cheaper. It is especially promising to use WEI for pumping water for small-scale hydroelectric power plants. Economically sound potential of WEI is evaluated in 3 thousand tons of equivalent fuel. In 1998 the Institute Belenergoset’ conducted an assessment of wind speed and concluded that Belarus does not have weather conditions that favor wind energy installations with present state of the art equipment. Plans to create a new type of wind power installation which will be able to produce power at low wind speed may make the wide-scale use of WEI in Belarus possible in the future (http://www.ecologia.org/nuclearcommunities/countryevals/belarus/potential.htm).

Energy Conversion:

References and Additional Information about Wind Resources in Belarus:

Potential energy resources in Belarus: http://www.ecologia.org/nuclearcommunities/countryevals/belarus/potential.htm
Nationmaster: http://www.nationmaster.com/country/bo/Energy
Energy Breakdown Chart of Belarus: N/A
Energy Grid Map of Belarus: N/A

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