Kazakhstan’s steppe geography makes it suitable for wind energy applications and the estimated potential of wind energy that can be economically developed is about 760GW.[18] About 50% of Kazakhstan’s territory has average wind speeds suitable for energy generation (4–6 m/s) with the strongest potential in the Caspian Sea, central and northern regions. The most promising individual sites are in the Almaty region in the Djungar(Dzhumgarian)Gates, 600 km northeast of Almaty close to the Xinjiang border and the Chylyk Corridor 100 km east of Almaty. Wind potentials of 525Wm2 in the Djungar Gates and 240Wm2 in the Chylyk corridor have been estimated with power production from wind turbines potentially achieving 4400 kW/h/MW and 3200 kW/h/MW respectively.[19] Currently, the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies selected 10 sites to build large wind power plants (WPP) with total capacity of 1,000 MW with a view to commercial production of electricity in the amount of 2-3 billion kWh. Currently only one wind energy plant is operating in Kazakhstan; the Kordai wind power plant with 1500 kW capacity was launched in December 2011 in Zhambyl region.

One of Kazakhstan’s power companies, Samruk-Energy JSC, was recently awarded a $94 million loan from the Eurasian Development Bank to build Kazakhstan’s largest wind farm. The project will produce 172 million kilowatt/hours of electrical energy per year, save more than 60 million tons of coal, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.