Crossroads Asia | Financial system | Central Asia
Amidst the vitality and electrical energy disaster, Tashkent’s pursuit of renewables is as a lot about addressing the specter of local weather change as it’s about shoring up its vitality safety.
Uzbekistan will not be the primary nation that involves thoughts when speaking about renewable vitality. However the gas-dependent nation with in depth fossil gasoline reserves and a decaying community of Soviet-era transmission infrastructure is making strides towards unlocking its potential for wind and solar energy and outpacing its neighbors within the course of.
Amidst the vitality and electrical energy disaster, the pursuit of renewables is as a lot about addressing the specter of local weather change as it’s about shoring up its vitality safety. Uzbekistan is showing to take steps away from Russian vitality imports and uncertainties in buying and selling electrical energy regionally and transferring towards new companions, notably within the Center East and China.
Whereas the nation leads its Central Asian counterparts in planning new renewables, Uzbekistan nonetheless faces numerous hurdles in its vitality transition away from fossil fuels in pursuit of vitality safety.
Uzbekistan has a goal of attaining greater than 30 p.c renewable vitality electrical energy capability (round 15 gigawatts) by 2030. At present the nation has solely two large-scale working photo voltaic farms, every 100 megawatts. The nation is pursuing a complete of 8.8 GW of potential wind and enormous utility-scale solar energy through tasks which have both been introduced or are within the pre-construction or development phases.
Uzbekistan’s potential portfolio consists of 5.6 GW of utility-scale photo voltaic and three.1 GW of wind energy at numerous levels of improvement. Three-quarters of potential wind tasks and almost half (48 p.c) of potential utility-scale photo voltaic tasks are but to achieve pre-construction or development levels, nevertheless, suggesting completion of those tasks may very well be a good distance off.
Nonetheless, the majority of the nation’s potential capability, 58 p.c (5.1 GW), is scheduled to be related to the grid by 2025. This determine doesn’t rely 1.4 GW of capability that has been shelved or different nascent tasks which have but to achieve a complicated stage of improvement.
Two key actors in Uzbekistan’s renewable vitality improvement have emerged from the Center East, with Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Energy and the Emirates’ Masdar planning 3.1 GW and three.2 GW of potential wind and utility-scale photo voltaic, respectively. These two corporations account for almost three-quarters (73 p.c) of all potential capability in Uzbekistan.
Extra extensively, the 2 corporations are additionally energetic in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, with Masdar additionally creating renewables in Tajikistan, solidifying their place because the predominant gamers within the Central Asian vitality sector, and probably decreasing Russian affect within the course of. China’s Gezhouba Group and PowerChina are main potential photo voltaic tasks.
Whereas progress on renewables is commendable, Uzbekistan remains to be closely investing within the improvement of oil and fuel and stays depending on fossil fuel to generate 85 p.c of its electrical energy. Along with limitations to renewable vitality improvement, considerations stay in regards to the potential dangers of renewable vitality tasks for native communities and wildlife, together with weak and endangered species. Uzbekistan additionally lacks a plan to section out fossil fuels, weakening the nation’s street to carbon neutrality by 2050.
On the similar time, ACWA Energy can also be planning to make use of a minimum of 2.6 GW of its wind and photo voltaic farms solely for inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing, nonetheless a largely unproven know-how. The hydrogen would ostensibly be used domestically to decarbonize Uzbekistan’s chemical trade, which is extra sustainable than constructing a 40 GW wind and photo voltaic advanced for hydrogen export as Kazakhstan presently plans to do. The dangers related to inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing could undermine each vitality safety and a simply and equitable decarbonization.
Going through the formidable process to realize vitality safety and decarbonization, Uzbekistan must stability the necessity for a safe vitality provide with different priorities similar to reliability, affordability, and fairness.
