BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 25. Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have signed a loan agreement worth $174 million for the construction of wind power plants in Uzbekistan’s Bukhara region, Trend reports via ADB.
The bank says that in the Bukhara region of Uzbekistan, two wind power plants will be constructed: the Bash wind power plant and the Dzhankeldy wind power plant.
To finance this ACWA Power's construction project, a special consortium of international creditors was created, in which the ADB also take part.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in the consortium acts as a technical bank, and UK’s Standard Chartered Bank serves as a documentation bank.
Other consortium members include Proparco – the French Development Finance Institution, KfW German Development Bank, as well as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Speaking about ADB's participation in the construction of these plants, the bank will allocate money from its own capital resources (some $87 million), while the remaining part will be covered by Leading Asia's Private Infrastructure Fund (LEAP), administered by the bank itself.
It is expected that each plant will consist of 79 wind turbines and both of them will generate more than 3,200 GWh of electricity, thus reducing about 2 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year.
Owing to the sum of money allocated by ADB and its fund, it will be also possible to install 282.5 kilometers of 500-kilovolt, single-circuit overhead transmission line to connect to the power grid.
Furthermore, recently, the OPEC International Development Fund (OFID) has signed two loan agreements of $20 million each with Saudi Arabian ACWA Power to support the installation of the abovementioned plants.
As it was previously reported, wind power plants with a total capacity of 1000 MW are believed to increase the renewable energy production capacity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and diversify the country's energy balance.
It is expected that the Dzhankeldy plant will generate 1,550 GWh of electricity per year, while the Bash wind power plant will have an annual electricity generation capacity of over 1,650 GWh and will include a 160-kilometer electricity transmission infrastructure.