Tashkent, Uzbekistan, May 15
By Demir Azizov- Trend:
Uzbekistan's Fund for Reconstruction and Development has allocated a $150 million loan to Uzbekenergo State JSC to modernize the Navoi thermal power plant (TPP), the company representative told Trend.
The company representative said the loan has been issued for 15 years, including a three-year grace period.
The loan will be used to purchase equipment as part of the second stage of modernization of the power plant.
As previously reported, Uzbekenergo plans to announce a tender in the second half of 2014, to choose a general contractor. The company is expected to start the construction of a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) with the capacity of 450 megawatts in early 2015.
After being commissioned, the CCGT will produce around 3.27 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and 1,520 Gcal of thermal energy. Plans are to commission the CCGT in 2017.
Financing is planned with round 33.01 billion yen ($332.6 million) to be borrowed from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and equity of Uzbekenergo.
As previously reported, in October 2012, Uzbekenergo completed the construction of the combined cycle gas turbine at Navoi TPP. The capacity of the CCGT is 478 megawatts.
The project cost was about $530 million.
The international consortium consisting of Spanish "Initec Energia" and Turkish "Calik Enerji" is a general contractor.
The installed capacity of Navoi thermal power plant (TPP) with the new CCGT was 1,540 megawatts, the annual electricity generation - 7.9 billion kilowatt / hours per year (with the total power generation at the level of 51-52 billion kilowatt / hours per year in the country).
At present, the installed capacity of the Uzbek power plant is about 13 million kilowatts. The main share of electricity - up to 90 percent is produced by 10 thermal power plants of Uzbekenergo with total installed capacity of 10.6 million kilowatts.
The project was financed through the Uzbek Reconstruction and Development Fund's loan, Uzbekenergo's equity and loans of the local commercial banks.
The Uzbek Reconstruction and Development Fund was created in May 2006 to finance and co-finance the important investment projects included in the public investment program. Founded by the government of the Republic through the Ministry of Finance, the authorized capital of the fund is currently $ 15 billion.
Edited by C.N.