The UAE’s Masdar, France’s Voltalia and China’s GD Power/Powerchina consortium have won tenders to build three solar power plants in Uzbekistan with a total capacity of 500 MW.
Masdar won the tender for the construction of a 250 MW solar power plant in the Bukhara region (central Uzbekistan) with a proposal of US$3.044c/kWh. It will be the first project in Uzbekistan to be implemented with a 62 MW Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).
Voltalia was awarded the development of a 100 MW solar plant in the Khorezm province (western Uzbekistan) with a proposal of US$2.888c/kWh. In November 2022, the French company also signed an agreement with the Uzbek government to co-develop between 400 and 500 MW of renewable energy projects in Uzbekistan, including the development of 200 MW of solar, 200 MW of wind and 60 MW/240 MWh of battery storage power.
A consortium of GD Power and Powerchina, won the tender for the construction of a 150 MW solar PV plant in Namangan region (eastern Uzbekistan) with a US$4.828c/kWh proposal. However, soon after the results were announced, Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy deemed the offer too expensive and announced plans to hold negotiations to reduce the power tariff.
At the end of 2021, Uzbekistan only had 104 MW of installed solar capacity and 1 MW of installed wind capacity. Hydro on the other hand represented more than 10% of the country’s installed capacity with over 2 GW. Uzbekistan is aiming for 8 GW of renewable capacity by 2026 and 12 GW by 2030. In its updated NDC (2021), Uzbekistan plans to build 5 GW of solar, 3 GW of wind, and 1.9 GW of hydropower capacities by 2030 to cover 25% of the power mix (up from 10% in 2019). Uzbekistan currently has about 1.5 GW of renewable projects under construction and almost 7 GW under development, including the 500 MW Zarafshan wind project.
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