The Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan has signed project agreements with Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC (Masdar) for two 220MW solar plants in the Jizzakh and Samarkand regions of the country.
Masdar was awarded the two projects in May this year, after an open tender overseen by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector arm.
Under the terms of the 25-year project agreements, Masdar will produce power for the National Electric Grid of Uzbekistan at tariffs of $17.91 a megawatt-hour at the Samarkand site and at $18.23/MWh at Jizzakh.
Masdar is expected to invest up to $300m in the projects with a financial close scheduled for December 2021 and construction anticipated to start in the first quarter of 2022.
Uzbekistan Minister of Energy Alisher Sultanov said: “Uzbekistan has been working closely with the IFC to open up the country’s power sector to private investment and to help us reach our goal of 25% of energy consumption deriving from renewable sources by 2030.
“These projects are key components in our ambitious strategy to develop environmentally friendly renewable sources of energy to meet our growing electricity demand.”
In the coming month, Uzbekistan is planning to launch a Request for Prequalification for up to 500MW of PV power plants to be tendered in three different regions.
This will be the third round of IFC tendered solar projects and will also include a battery storage component for one of the sites.