Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC (Masdar) has won the tender for the construction of a 457MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in Uzbekistan.
The contract for the project in the Sherabad district of the Surkhandarya region was awarded by the Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan.
The President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev formally launched the implementation phase of the project on a visit to the site on 1 June 2021.
This followed his recent announcement on 31 May at the International Summit Partnership for Green Growth and Global Goals – 2030 that Uzbekistan plans to host an international conference Green Energy for Developing Countries next year.
The Sherabad project is part of a wider programme to construct solar PV plants with a total capacity of 1GW.
The programme is being implemented by Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade, with support from the Asian Development Bank.
Energy Minister of Uzbekistan Alisher Sultanov said: “Solar power is a priority for Uzbekistan, and we look forward to reaching our target of 1GW set by the Programme.
“Our solar energy strategy will create highly skilled, local clean energy jobs in line with the government’s program for energy diversification.
“The global solar energy market has doubled since 2019, with a record number of new installations targeted. In Uzbekistan, we are very happy to join the international community of solar power generators and have an industrial solar strategy in place.”
The Programme will lower energy costs for the Uzbek population, decrease the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, and reduce overall CO2 emissions.
It is also a key component of Uzbekistan’s ambitious, wider strategy to generate up to 5GW of environmentally friendly solar generation by 2030, to meet growing electricity demand.
Once complete, the Sherabad plant’s annual output will be 1.04bn kWh which will save 340m cubic metres of natural gas per year and provide 300,000 households with electricity.
Overall, 54 international companies originally expressed interest in the project.
Following a careful selection process, five short-listed candidates submitted final commercial, technical and financial proposals.
As a result, Masdar was awarded the tender to construct the 457MW plant with a proposed energy charge (tariff) of US 1.8045 cents per kWh.
The project also includes construction of a new 220kV substation and a 52 km transmission line to connect to the 500kV Surkhan substation.
To compare, other bidders’ proposals were 3.3940, 2.4825 and 2.1621 cents per kWh.