ARMENIA

1. GENERAL ENERGY, ECONOMIC AND ELECTRICITY INFORMATION

1.1 General Overview
The Republic of Armenia, the smallest of the three Transcaucasian republics, is a landlocked mountainous country bounded on the north by the Republic of Georgia, on the east and southwest by Azerbaijan, on the south by Iran and on the west by Turkey. The northern border is 196 km long, the border with Azerbaijan is 913 km, the southern border has a length of 42 km and the western 280 km. The land area of the republic is 28 400 km². The terrain is defined by the high Armenian Plateau with mountains, little forest and fast flowing rivers. The average height above sea level is about 1 800 meters.

FIG. 2. Map of the Republic of Armenia

The climate is highland continental with hot and dry summers and cold winters. Annual average temperature varies from -2.7°C to 13.8°C. The coldest month is January (from 1.2°C to -12.8°C) and the hottest months are July and August (from 25.8°C to 8.7°C). Summer temperatures may rise up to 42°C, winter cold has maximum of 46°C below zero. Summer relative wetness is 32-45% (July-August), winter relative wetness is 80-90%. Annual rainfall varies from 220 mm (in winter) to 900 mm (May- June). The annual maximum sunshine is 2 780 hours (Lake Sevan area), and minimum 1 930 hours (Idgevan). The average intensity of solar radiation on the aclinic plane on a cloudless day is 700 kkal/m2. The annual average wind velocity varies from 7.7 m/sec to 1.0 m/sec.

The population of Armenia, according to the 2001census of population, is about 3.21 million, of which 70% lives in urban areas. Armenia is a densely populated country with a density of 113 person/km2. The historical population information is shown in Table 3.

TABLE 3.  POPULATION INFORMATION

^a Formal data of the census of population.                           ^b Data & Statistics/The World Bank

Source:  IAEA Energy and Economic Database; Data  & Statistics/The World Bank; Country Information.

The population average growth from 1979 to 2002 is about 0.24% . The concentration of population is not equal in different areas of the republic. The Ararat Valley is the most populated territory of the country with the density of 245 person/km2. Its area makes about 26.7% of the total territory and its population reach to 58.8% of the total population. Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia, lays in the Ararat Valley and is home to 1.2 million people, which is about one third of the total population. The highland areas have much less population with the density of 35 person/km2.

1.1.1. Economic Indicators

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, an economic crisis broke out, and Armenia suffered from sharp decline in production during the period 1990-1994. The country undertook great efforts to overcome it. Since then, the situation has been gradually stabilized, and the republic is coming out of the crisis following the transition to a market economy. During the period 1995-2002, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased on 83 %, and the average growth rate was 9.1 % per year. The historical GDP information is shown in Table 4.

TABLE 4. GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)

^(a) Millions of current US$ at market prices                         ^(c) Data & Statistics/The World Bank

^(b) Current US$ per capita at market prices

Source:  IAEA Energy and Economic Data Base; Data & Statistics/The World Bank; Country Information.

Armenia is not rich in mineral raw materials. There are only a few items of considerable industrial value: copper, bauxite, molybdenum, precious metals, perlite, diatomite and coal. This factor mainly determines the economic structure of the republic. There has traditionally been very little heavy industry. The manufacturing sector has a prevailing share in GDP.

1.1.2 Energy Situation

The main sources of energy, traditionally used in Armenia, are: oil products, natural gas, nuclear energy, hydropower and coal. Hydro and a small amount of brown coal are the only domestic sources of energy, which are exploited. The republic has no oil and some gas reserves (not exploited). There are no uranium resources either. The energy reserves are shown in Table 5. Primary energy sources, in thousand tonnes of oil equivalent, are summarized in Table 6. To meet its energy requirements, Armenia has to import gas, oil products and nuclear fuel.

TABLE 5. ESTIMATED ENERGY RESERVES

^(a) This total represents essentially recoverable reserves.

^(b) For comparison purposes a rough attempt is made to convert hydro capacity to energy by multiplying the gross theoretical annual capability (World Energy Council - 1998) by a factor of 10.

Source:  IAEA Energy and Economic Data Base.

TABLE 6. PRIMARY ENERGY SOURCES

                                                                                                                                                                         ktoe

Source: Country Information.

^a)  information is not available

Hydropower is based on the water resources of the republic, including Lake Sevan, one of the largest highland fresh-water lakes in the world (1 900 m above sea level), and the rivers: Arax, Arpa, Hrazdan, Debet and Vorotan. During the last period of time, several small hydro power plants with the total capacity of 15 MW have been built. Hydro power plants of the Sevan-Hrazdan cascade are operating at a low level capacity, because, after the intense use of the lake water during the last crisis, the Government of Armenia decided to reduce releases from Lake Sevan to restore its potential. At the same time, Armenia has still an unused hydraulic potential of about 300 MW (or 1248 millions kWh of electric energy) that can be developed economically. The detailed information on all the power plants in Armenia is given in Appendix 2.

Natural gas is the most important source of energy covering up to 80% of the total energy supply. It is imported from Russia and used to operate two thermal power plants; a third thermal power plant is not operating, because it was built to supply thermal energy to an industrial factory, which is no longer in operation. However, the plans have been under discussion to restart this thermal power plant together with that industrial factory. The designed capacity of the high-pressure gas transportation network of Armenia is 17 billions m3/year. In 1980, the maximum demand for natural gas in Armenia was above 5-6 billions m3/year. There have been five main gas pipelines built, which ensured the gas delivery from three sides: Georgia, North and West Azerbaijan. Today, only the first one is operating. In 2002, the natural gas demand was 1.1 billions m3, but the expected demand by the year 2015 will be 5.5 - 6.2 billions m3/year depending on the ANPP status (closed or in operation). There are underground storage facilities for natural gas with a maximal gas storage volume of 180 million m3. Gas distribution in Armenia is performed through high, medium and low-pressure distribution networks.

Oil products are imported from the neighbouring countries, mostly utilized for transport, industry, residential sector (heating) and as secondary fuel (mazut) in thermal power plants. During the last several years, mazut was not imported into the republic. As to the renewable sources of energy (geothermal, wind, solar and waste burning), they are under study and not yet available.

Armenia has a considerable potential of geothermal energy, but a programme has to be developed to explore the geothermal resources and to carry out drilling activities. Wind power projects (the construction of power stations) are still under discussion. The most worth-while regions suitable for the construction are: Vanadzor, Aragats, Lake Sevan basin and Sisian, where the wind velocity reaches 7 m/s. Armenia is a sunny republic with a high level of solar radiation. Nevertheless, it is too expensive to utilize the solar energy, and the republic, which appears to have very good solar radiation potential, cannot afford using it. A waste burning facility project (the construction of a station with a capacity of 10 MW in Yerevan) is under discussion as well.

Nuclear energy played a crucial role during the period of recovery from the economical crisis. There is one nuclear power plant in Armenia - Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP), which has two reactor units. Unit 1 is out of operation, and Unit 2 was re-commissioned in 1995, after 6.5 years of outage. The nuclear fuel necessary for the ANPP operation is supplied by the Russian Federation.

In Armenia, the primary energy per capita is around 0.65 toe/capita (2000). Energy statistics are shown in Table 7. The country total energy consumption shows a steady increase at a rate, which is significantly greater than the increase of GDP.

TABLE 7. ENERGY STATISTICS

                                                                                                                          Exajoule