AZERBAIJAN - The Power Sector.Azerbaijan's total installed
capacity for power generation is about 5 gigawatts (GW),
consisting of eight thermal plants which supply about 85% of the
electricity, and five hydro-electric stations. The thermal
plants are based mostly on heavy fuel oil, and natural gas is
only used as a secondary source for some plants. But the actual
generating capacity now is only 4.8 GW, because of obsolete
facilties and lack of proper maintenance, and more than 30% of
the power produced is lost due to a bad transmission system and
some theft. If the maintenance system is not improved, the
usable capacity would drop further, while domestic demand for
power has been rising rapidly since 1996. There is also an
exchange of power supplies between Azerbaijan and each of
Russia, Georgia, Iran and Turkey. Since 1994, imports from these
countries have overtaken exports by far. Azerbaijan still
depends heavily on the import of power plant equipment and spare
parts Spare parts, also referred to as Servic