Today at the press conference in the press center of the Government, Vice Minister of Energy Gani Sadibekov talked about the measures taken to further develop the country's resource potential in the light of the implementation of the second direction of the President's Address.

One of the priorities identified by the Head of State in the Address "New Opportunities Under the Fourth Industrial Revolution" is the further development of the resource potential through increasing the share of renewable energy in the country, the transition to green technologies, modern utilization and processing of solid domestic waste.

In the implementation of the tasks set, updating legislation, including the Environmental Code, will help create favorable conditions for the ecologization of the economy.

"The issue of developing the resource potential in our country is consistent: in the Development Strategy of Kazakhstan until 2050, one of the challenges of the modern world is the depletion of natural resources," Gani Sadibekov said.

In this regard, the Ministry of Energy sets the following tasks:

• in the electric power industry, the share of alternative and renewable electricity by 2030 should reach 30%;
• in energy efficiency, there is the task of reducing the energy intensity of GDP by 25% by 2020.

According to the Vice Minister, the renewable energy market is growing annually, in 2017, 1.1 billion kWh was generated, which is 22% more than in 2016. The plan for 2018 is 1.7 billion kWh. In addition, five renewable energy projects were put into operation last year: 3 hydropower plants (HPP), 1 wind power plant (WPP), 1 solar power plant (SPP).

This year, it is planned to introduce 10 objects of renewable energy sources with a total capacity of 123 MW. At the same time, it is planned to begin further development of RES with the transition to the auction mechanism.

"This will help make the process of selection of projects and investors transparent and understandable on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to rely on more efficient technologies and projects that minimize the impact on end-users' tariffs from entering renewable energy capacities, as well as clearly define the responsibility of market participants for generation, as well as for transmission and consumption. This system will give impetus to the development of the most cost-effective RES projects," Gani Sadibekov said.

The Vice Minister said that this year for the first time, international auctions will be held for RES projects with a total capacity of 1 GW. The very first bidding is scheduled for May 2018.

A number of domestic and foreign companies, including ACWA Power (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), SKY Power (Canada), Shell, General Electric (the USA), Goldwind (China) expressed their desire to participate in the auction.