Armenia Given Unique Opportunity to Achieve Energy Independence: Pashinyan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with participants of the event titled "Youth for a Science-Based Future of Armenia" as part of the "Days of Sustainable Energy in Yerevan". He also answered questions from young people.

One of the questions came from Narek Mkrtchyan, a student at the Armenian Creative Technologies (ACT) college: "Dear Prime Minister, I would like to ask you a question. Armenia is actively developing its energy sector. What role can students from engineering colleges, like ours, play in this process, and how can the state support such initiatives?" In response, Pashinyan noted that Armenia has a nuclear power plant, which is currently the most powerful source of electricity, with a capacity of 400 megawatts.

“Since 2018, Armenia has developed a capacity to produce 1200 megawatts of solar energy, equivalent to 2.5 nuclear power plants. Solar energy has this problem: It is only available when the sun is out, meaning it is there during the day and not at night. For example, my political assessment is that this technology has given Armenia a unique chance to become an energy-independent state because of our solar potential... You have heard of it, haven’t you, ‘The Land of the Sun, Armenia’? Now we can transform this phrase into an energy-independent Armenia. Our challenge is to figure out how to solve the nighttime issue. Our engineering mindset must work in this direction,” the Prime Minister stated.

According to him, many jobs are being created in the energy sector as capacities are also developing: “I am happy and encourage the expansion of knowledge and education in this direction, and to think about how to solve these issues as well.”