Uzbekistan unveils plans for up to 800 MW of new solar

The government of Uzbekistan last week unveiled plans for two new solar projects supporting a plan backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the deployment of 1GW of solar power capacity.

Early next year, the country will hold a tender for the so-called Sheraban Phase II project that will add up to 300 MW to an existing scheme in Sherabad district of the Surkhandarya region, the Ministry of Energy said on Thursday. The final round in a tender for the at least 200-MW Sheraban Phase I is currently ongoing, with bids to be accepted by March 15, 2021.

The second-phase photovoltaic (PV) park will be installed in close proximity to Sherabad Phase I and will link through a 52-km transmission line that will connect to a 220-kV substation in Surkhan. The capacity of the plant will be between 150 MW and 300 MW, depending on the tender outcome for the first phase. Both phases will total 500 MW.

Separately, Uzbekistan will give a kick to a 500-MW solar project that will be its third solar public private partnership (PPPs) project. To be initiated in the first quarter of next year, the project will be split into three lots and will be tendered among private partners under the design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) model. One of the lots will be coupled battery storage component.

The project will be launched in February, said Minister of Energy Alisher Sultanov.

Uzbekistan aims to lift the share of its installed renewables capacity by up to 5 GW in the next 10 years. With the assistance of the World Bank’s International Finance Corp (IFC), it is holding a series of tenders that will add 1 GW of solar PV.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!