Armenia’s government impedes solar power engineering development – scientist

Armenia’s government is impeding the development of solar power engineering, the author of the Heliophysics Program Vahan Hamazaspyan told Tert.am.

The sector needs investments, but solar power is about 100 times as cheap as nuclear power.

“The Swiss government decided to invest $300m in solar battery production in Armenia, but our government objected to the project, while such investments are impossible without the government’s consent,” Mr Hamazaspyan said.

Although in a private talk Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan mentioned his interest in solar power engineering, in making its decision the government considers “certain people’s pockets.”

“If we take a realistic view of our energy sector, we can see that we go on relying on imported gas and nuclear power, while we are ignoring solar power,” the scientist said.