Uzbek President instructs to gradually reduce state presence in electricity market

Tashkent, Jan.14, 2020. /Kabar/. At the meeting on development of Uzbekistan’s energy sector, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev instructed to gradually reduce the state presence in the electricity market, UzA news agency reported.

This year, the volume of electricity consumption will amount to 71 billion kWh, which is 9 percent more than last year. The demand of economic sectors is expected to grow by 10 percent and the population by 8.5 percent. During the year it is planned to put into operation new power capacities by almost 1300 MW.

This year additional capacities are planned to be put into operation for 1177 megawatts in thermal power and 120 megawatts in hydro power. At the same time, projects with attraction of direct foreign investments have been formed, providing for construction of combined-cycle plants with capacity of 3.5 thousand megawatts, wind farms for 400 megawatts and solar power plants with the same capacity.

According to the forecast, by 2030 electricity consumption in Uzbekistan will exceed the current level twice. In this regard, the President instructed to introduce new thermal power plants with a total capacity of 7900 megawatts in the next 10 years.

A total of 1076 megawatts of power generating capacity were put into operation in Uzbekistan in 2019 due to implementation of six major projects.