Uzbekistan

With pressure mounting on the world’s governments to turn their back on the fossil fuel, China and peers in South East Asia, Europe and South Asia could help deliver a coal-free future at the COP26 climate summit planned in Glasgow in November.

Through the procurement exercise, the Uzbek authorities want to build several PV plants in the Namangan, Bukhara and Khorezm regions.

The new facility is the first of almost 1 GW of solar generation capacity Emirati developer Masdar is working on bringing to fruition in the Central Asian nation.

The Uzbek Ministry of Energy plans to hold two more solar tenders for a series of PV plants spread across the Kashkadarya and Fergana, Bukhara, Khorezm, and Namangan regions. It also revealed that there are 1.29 GW worth of projects under construction in the country.

The London-based development finance provider has made more than €50 million available for sustainable investment across three separate credit lines recently.

Masdar’s latest, 400 MW solar project win followed hot on the heels of the award of the contract to develop a 457 MW solar field elsewhere in the central Asian nation.

The offer was made by UAE-based developer Masdar. The highest bid, submitted by French energy company Total, was $0.033940/kWh.

French energy company Total is developing the solar field near Samarkand, which will sell power to National Electric Networks of Uzbekistan under a 25-year power purchase agreement.

The two companies are initially planning to build a 200 MW pumped-hydro facility in the Bostanlyk district of Uzbekistan’s Tashkent region.

The 200 MW solar park will be built in Sherabad, in southeastern Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya region.