Uzbekistan has raised its solar and wind power targets to address the country’s rising energy demands, following challenges in boosting domestic natural gas production, The Caspian Post reports citing foreign media.
The landlocked country has the highest population among former Soviet Central Asian republics and relies on imports of Russian crude via Kazakhstan to help bolster its domestic oil output, which in 2023
stood at about 5.8 million barrels of oil, according to statistical reports in Tashkent.
Uzbekistan’s domestic gas production has been in decline for several years, with output falling by almost 5% to 37.1 billion cubic metres between January and October this year against the same period of 2023.
Production for the January-October period peaked at 50.1 Bcm in 2019, following the opening of the country’s energy sector to foreign investment.
The continued output decline and supply shortage has led to the government introducing limits on natural gas deliveries to farms and retail outlets that sell gas as transportation fuel in an effort to continue uninterrupted supplies for power generation and major industrial customers.
To help address the shortfall the government has encouraged investments in redeveloping legacy assets and developing new fields.
Last year the government also agreed to invest in reversing the flow of the legacy Soviet-era Central Asia-Centre pipeline network to import Russian gas via Kazakhstan.
Speaking at a meeting with renewable energy investors from the United Arab Emirates, China and Europe in Tashkent last week, Uzbekistan President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, said that solar, wind and hydropower are now expected to cover 54% of the country’s electricity use in 2030.
Mirziyoyev last year rubber-stamped a wide-ranging plan for the country’s development, Uzbekistan-2030, which called for renewable energy sources to answer up to 40% of the nation’s electricity demand by this year.
However, Uzbekistan’s state statistics agency said that between January and October this year, renewable energy sources accounted for only about 12% of the country’s total electricity production.
The new target implies that Uzbekistan will aim to operate close to 34 gigawatts of renewable energy plants in six years, as renewable energy sources were planned to provide 25 GW of electricity, according to the Uzbekistan-2030 plan
Mirziyoyev said that with the expected commissioning of 18 ongoing projects to build solar and wind power stations in Uzbekistan in 2025, with the total power capacity of 3.4 GW, the country’s total renewable energy capacity should reach 12 GW.
The new renewables goal is expected to reduce the country’s use of natural gas, which is used to generate power, by 2.5 Bcm per annum, Mirziyoyev said, easing the burden on the country’s gas distribution networks during winter.
Major investors and Uzbekistan’s partners in country’s solar and wind farms include UAE players Masdar, Acwa Power and Aksa Energy and conglomerates such as China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEDC), China National Technical Import and Export Corporation (CNTIC) and Dofang Electric Corporation.
