Baku Energy Week closed this week with $7.5 billion in contracts signed during the forum. Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov used his remarks to frame Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and the Caspian region as a unified emerging energy space — and to position the Central Asia–Azerbaijan Green Energy Corridor as the infrastructure connecting it.
The corridor concept links renewable energy generation in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — both of which have large-scale solar and wind programmes — with Azerbaijani transmission infrastructure and, via undersea cable, to European markets. IRENA and the Asia-Pacific Renewable Energy Community (APREC) were referenced in Shahbazov's remarks alongside COP31, which Turkey will host, as the policy context for accelerating regional energy cooperation.
The Strait of Hormuz remains closed to roughly 20% of global petroleum transit. The Middle Corridor is the only east-west route that bypasses both Russia and Iran. Energy is following the same logic as trade.
The green corridor is not yet a fully funded infrastructure project. It is a diplomatic and investment framework with institutional backing — IRENA's involvement gives it multilateral credibility — but the financing architecture is still being assembled. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have signed framework agreements; the capital commitments are the next step.
The Baku forum context matters: Azerbaijan has positioned itself as the energy bridge between Central Asia and Europe since the opening of the Southern Gas Corridor, and Shahbazov's remarks extend that logic into renewables. The AI data centre electricity demand thread was also present — both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are building significant data centre capacity, and grid connectivity to European markets addresses their clean power export potential simultaneously.
CAW CONTEXT
The green corridor story connects to several threads CAW has been tracking: Kazakhstan's panda bonds (yuan-denominated debt for infrastructure), the Middle Corridor (the same east-west route, now being argued for energy as well as freight), and the EBRD Riga agenda (energy transition as a headline session). The corridor is three to five years from operational capacity at best, but the political momentum — confirmed again at Baku Energy Week — is real. The next concrete milestone is COP31 in Turkey, where regional energy commitments are expected to be formalised.