YEREVAN, DECEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The development of energy market liberalization program and the hot discussions in the Parliament, the works on extending the term of the second energy bloc of the nuclear power plant and the reforms in the renewable energy field are the three key achievements during this year, deputy minister of energy infrastructures and natural resources Hayk Harutyunyan gave an interview to ARMENPRESS summing up the year of 2017.

-Mr. Harutyunyan, summarizing the year, what three steps and programs will you identify in the context of the policy carried out in the field of energy infrastructures? And what issues still remain a challenge for the field?

-This year we really implemented significant programs, it’s a little difficult to identify three of them. Nevertheless, the first one was the launch of the market liberalization process. This year the government approved the energy market liberalization program-timetable which supposes a step-by-step liberalization. The package of legislative initiatives has been submitted to the Parliament which was widely discussed there, but overall, it was positively assessed, and it will probably be included in the agenda of the plenary session in January.

The second one was the extension program of life cycle of the nuclear power plant, the planned renovation lasted nearly 2.5 months. During this period almost all equipment of the NPP underwent a deep examination. During the year a large-scale work has been conducted, numerous technologies were imported.

The third one can be the reforms of solar energy that entered a practical stage this year which we have implemented at the end of 2016. At the end of the year we already have nearly 200 solar plants merged with the network, which means that people installed solar power plants on their roofs and generate energy for their own needs.

In addition, a number of other works have also been done, for instance, the reconstruction of substations in the High-voltage electric networks continues.

As for the issues, they always exist, this is a working system which cannot avoid problems. “There are quite large infrastructures in the Armenian Electric Networks which need to be changed and upgraded. For this purpose the Armenian Electric Networks submitted a major investment program which has been approved and managed to attract privileged loan resources at lower interest rates from the international financial structures. The problems are constant, it’s just necessary to continue working.

Interview by Ani Nazaryan

Full interview is available in Armenian.