TASHKENT

Uzbekistan has completed the modernisation of the Sirdarya thermal power plant (TTP), considered one of the largest in the Central Asian region as the country tries to gradually modernise its ageing energy infrastructure.

According to energy officials, a $146 million worth project was implemented jointly with the Russian national machine-building company Power Machines in the last three years. Upgrading power units were accomplished by connecting the last, 9th power unit to the country’s single power grid.

Sirdarya TPP, with a designed capacity of 3,100 megawatts was commissioned in 1981 when Uzbekistan was a part of the Soviet Union. It uses natural gas as a primary fuel.

As a result of the work carried out, the capacity of each power unit was increased from 300 megawatts to 325 megawatts, the conventional fuel consumption per 1 kilowatt-hour (kWh) was reduced by 40 grams,” Bakhodir Nurdinov, the plant’s director-general, said.

“Upon completion of the modernisation process, 270 million cubic meters of natural gas will be saved annually. Also, it is expected that the service life of the modernised power units will be increased by at least another 20 years,” he added.

Saved gas will be directed to the population, social facilities and various sectors of the economy.

Uzbekistan has 11 TPPs, and the country produced 54,4 billion kWh of electricity last year. In 2021 electricity production is expected to increase to 56.7 billion kWh.

According to Uzbekistan’s Thermal Power Plant, the sector expects to implement four investment projects worth $2.5 billion in 2022-2026 to produce additional 2.264 megawatt-hours of electricity and save 2.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.

In August the country’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a resolution ordering to provide projects of foreign and domestic investors worth more than $18 million with external engineering and communication networks at the expense of the state budget in a move to attract foreign investors and encourage domestic entrepreneurs.

The resolution tasked the government to bring infrastructure networks, including gas and electricity to projects sites of the investors, whose own funds in an enterprise should be at least 25 percent, from October 1.

The resource-rich Central Asian nation of 34 million had been led by Mirziyoyev, who took over in late 2016 following the death of veteran leader Islam Karimov, who had run Uzbekistan with an iron fist for 27 years.

Since 2016, Mirziyoyev unveiled an ambitious economic reform programme, opened up the country to foreign trade and investment, scrapped monetary and other administrative burdens for business. Uzbekistan has also set up a special judicial panel for foreign investors under the country’s Supreme Court to better protect their interests and created an Anti-Corruption Committee.

Over the past five years, the number of entrepreneurs has increased by 25 percent thus leading to raised electricity consumption by 30 percent, the president said.

Mirziyoyev also prioritised reforming the country’s energy system by opening up it to foreign investors offering public-private partnership in the power sector and promised to create all necessary conditions by 2025 that private investors would be able to produce up to 50 percent of the country’s electricity.