The president Shavkat Mirziyoyev familiarized himself with a presentation on steps to provide large industrial enterprises with "green" energy Monday, the presidential press service said.
By 2030, Uzbekistan’s population is projected to reach 41 million, and the size of the economy - $200 billion. This will reportedly require a significant increase in power capacity. Therefore, steps are being taken for wide use of renewables.
The presentation provided information on ongoing projects and plans for the near future. The main priorities are reportedly the development of generation, modernization and improvement of energy efficiency.
It is planned to commission 12 solar and 4 wind power plants by the end of 2025, as well as 12 power storage systems. The volume of investments in these projects is estimated at over 5 billion dollars, the expected capacity is about 9 billion kWh. In addition, construction of another 11 facilities will begin for a total worth of $7.2 billion.
Along with the expansion of production, Shavkat Mirziyoyev gave directives to focus on reducing losses and installing energy-efficient equipment, especially at industrial enterprises. A third of the country's energy consumption falls on 18 sectors. Water management system pumps alone consume 6.5 billion kWh per year.
To solve this problem, it is planned to modernize 12 large pumps with the installation of solar power plants with a capacity of 75-100 MW and storage systems of 50 MW next to them. This will reduce the power consumption of pumps to 4.5 billion kWh annually. The first such projects will be implemented on the Karshi Main Canal, where the cost of water supply is especially high.
A similar approach is to be applied in the oil and gas industry: at least 600 million kWh per year can be additionally generated through PV plants with a capacity of 240 MW and storage systems of 300 MW.
In general, the meeting considered measures to transition 18 of the most energy-intensive industries to an autonomous energy supply system, as well as the use of solar energy in social infrarstructure.
The Deputy PM Jamshid Khodjaev told earlier that Uzbekistan had plans to increase electricity generation from 84 to 135 billion kWh by 2030, and the installed capacity of renewable energy sources by more than five times, from 4 to over 20 GW.
