BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 9. The World Bank (WB) will allocate about $12 million for the construction of two solar power plants with a total capacity of 440 MW in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand and Jizzakh regions (to $6 million for each of the plants), Trend reports via the press service of WB.
According to the WB, the financing of the solar power plants is carried out within the framework of the “Scaling Solar 2 Project for Uzbekistan” program.
“The Project will help expand the country’s capacity to produce clean and renewable energy, as well as further support the Government’s agenda of the transition to a green economy and promoting the decarbonization of the energy sector”, the WB says.
The WB notes that the solar power plants will generate 1.1 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of renewable electricity per year. The plants will also prevent over 100,000 tons of carbon emissions per year.
In May 2021, Masdar, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, the UAE-government-owned renewable energy company, won the tender for the construction of the mentioned solar power plants. The total project cost is $450 million, with about $193 million financed by Masdar itself.
“The debt financing package of $216 million will be provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB),” the WB notes.
Furthermore, in 2019, Uzbekistan joined the World Bank Group (WBG)’s Scaling Solar Program. Navoi 100 MW Scaling Solar 1 power plant, constructed as part of this program, became the first large-scale, competitively procured, and privately developed and operated renewable energy facility in Uzbekistan.