Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Sept.13 / Trend, D. Azizov /
Russian NC "LUKOIL" plans to build a solar power plant in Uzbekistan, LUKOIL president Vagit Alekperov said at a forum of young specialists of "Lukoil", LUKOIL reported.
Alekperov said at present the company is working on the design of the solar power plant with the Uzbek government and Asian Development Bank.
"First it will be 100 megavattt, later - one gigawatt," Alekperov said. He did not disclose the cost and term of the project implementation.
The Uzbek government intends to develop a national concept of renewable energy use, with the widespread use of alternative energy sources in daily life, using foreign experience by late this year.
According to the Uzbek Center for Economic Research (CER), preservation of resource volumes, as well as volumes of natural gas and coal reserves in Uzbekistan, under current trends and consumption would yield only 20-30 more years of supplies; oil reserves have already run out.
Some 97 percent of oil and gas is in the country's primary fuel and energy resources, 2.3 percent is in coal, and 0.7 percent in hydropower.
The share of renewable energy use in Uzbekistan does not exceed one percent, though Uzbekistan has great potential for this. According to national experts, renewable energy potential in Uzbekistan is about 51 billion tons in oil equivalents, with technical potential of 17.982 billion tons in oil equivalents.Potential of solar energy hits 50.973 billion tons in oil equivalent.
According to official statistics, in 2010 liquid hydrocarbon production in Uzbekistan decreased by 17.9 percent compared to 2009, and hit 3.662 million tons, including gas condensate production, which fell by 22.5 percent to 1.644 million tons, oil - 13.5 percent to 2.018 million tons. Natural gas production fell by 2.1 percent to 60.112 billion cubic meters. Power production increased by 3.5 percent last year and reached 51.712 billion kWh.