Uzbekistan wants to tender another 900 MW of PV

Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy has revealed it is planning to launch two more solar tenders for the construction of large-scale PV power plants. A first tender is planned for the Bukhara, Khorezm and Namangan regions, where the Uzbek government wants to deploy 500 MW of PV facilities and a second procurement exercise is expected be held for 400 MW of solar capacity across the Kashkadarya and Fergana regions. No more details were provided.

In a separate statement, the ministry revealed that there are currently 1,297 MW of solar parks under construction. These include a 100 MW plant in the Navoi region, which is scheduled for completion in September 2021; a PV park also with a capacity of 100 MW in the Samarkand region, with commissioning planned for December 2021; a 200 MW solar farm in the Nurata district of the Navoi region, which is scheduled to come online in the second quarter of 2023; a 457 MW solar park in the Surkhandarya region, for which completion is scheduled for the second quarter of 2023; and two PV plants with a capacity of 220 MW each in the Samarkand and Jizzakh regions, both set to come online in the fourth quarter of this year.

The country's tender program, which awards successful developers 25-year power purchase agreements, is backed by international lenders including the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Uzbekistan aims to deploy 5 GW of solar by 2030. According to the latest statistics released by the International Renewable Energy Agency, Uzbekistan had just 4 MW of installed solar power at the end of 2020. Last year, no new PV additions were registered in the country.