Three Chinese companies have landed themselves deals with the Uzbekistan's Ministry of Energy to directly invest around $4 billion in the construction of a total 4 GW solar PV capacity spread across various parts of the country.
During the recent state visit of Uzbekistan's Minister of Energy Jurabek Mirzamakhmudov to China, he entered a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with state-owned energy company China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC Energy China) for the construction of 2 GW solar PV plants in Kashkadarya, Bukhara and Samarkand regions. The total investment CEEC expects to incur on this is $2 billion.
The ministry also announced a cooperation agreement with Huaneng Renewables Corporation and Poly Technologies to build another 2 GW of solar PV plants. These companies will construct this capacity in Jizzakh and Tashkent regions. The consortium of Huaneng and Poly will also make direct investments of $2 billion to bring this capacity online.
Together this 4 GW solar PV capacity will generate over 10 billion kWh of clean energy annually, which the ministry says will help save around 2.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Initial PV projects from these contracts are expected to become operational by the end of 2023, but in its official announcement the ministry did not reveal individual projects. By 2024, all of 4 GW will be commissioned as per the terms of agreement signed.
Uzbekistan aims to grow its solar PV capacity to 7 GW and wind energy to 5 GW by 2030 to meet its energy expansion targets. To get there, it is being supported by the World Bank's Scaling Solar Program under which a 100 MW solar power plant was realized by Masdar in August 2021. A auction under round 2 of the program had the country selecting GD Power-Powerchina consortium, Masdar, and Voltalia to build 500 MW PV capacity (see Uzbekistan's 500 MW Solar Power Auction Concludes).
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