MOSCOW, March 24. /ITAR-TASS/. The Crimean peninsula is an energy-deficient region that imports more than 80% of its electricity, generated in Ukraine via 220/330 kilowatt power lines across the Isthmus of Perekop and the Chongar Peninsula.

Crimea is almost 20% self-reliant in electricity, generated by several companies. The main energy supplier is the Krymenergo joint-stock company, with assets including 27,700 kilometres of power lines.

The population consumes 46% of supplies, industry takes 17.6% and agriculture 6.7%.

The region has considerable potential to develop generation of alternative energy such as solar and wind power. Crimea is now successfully realising a programme aimed at switching the region to environmentally friendly energy and constructing solar power plants. Four photovoltaic plants with a total capacity of 227.5 milliwatt (Rodnikovskaya, Mityaevskaya, Okhotnikovskaya and Perovskaya) were constructed over 2010-2012.

Pilot generation of wind energy takes place at seven wind power plants managed by four companies. It was in Crimea that the Soviet Union built its first industrial wind-power plant, the world's largest, in the 1930s. The plant was destroyed in 1942.

In Soviet times, a Crimean nuclear power plant was being constructed near the town of Shchelkino. The first power unit was planned to be commissioned in the early 1990s but following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, construction was first suspended and then abandoned in 1989. The plant is now beyond repair. Nuclear fuel was not delivered to it and the location is not radiation-hazardous.

Crimea’s gas transportation system is linked to Ukraine’s and comprises 1,546.3 kilometres of main gas pipelines, including 284.6 kilometres undersea.

The Chernomorneftegaz joint-stock company is the core of the peninsula’s oil and gas complex. The company was set up in 1979 for development of hydrocarbon resources of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Chernomorneftegaz’s gas provides for 66.1 percent of Crimea’s needs. The rest comes via the Kharkovtransgaz system. Total gas demand amounts to about 1.7-2 billion cubic metres. Eight in ten Crimean households receive pipeline gas.

According to the First Deputy Prime Minister of Crimea, Rustam Temirgaliev, the region leads in the Black Sea basin in offshore oil and gas production - about 1.5 billion cubic metres of gas a year. Crimea now has 26 fields ashore and eight Black Sea fields with proven resources of 15 million tonnes of fuel equivalent. Geological prospecting work has shown that the Kerch vicinity hosts the Black Sea region’s major oil and gas basins.