The Government of Uzbekistan (GOU) has announced a tender for 100 MW of wind power projects and associated infrastructure in the Qorao’zak district of the Karakalpakstan region of the country.

The Ministry of Energy (MOE), the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade (MIFT) and the Public-Private Partnership Development Agency (PPPDA) under the Ministry of Finance have requested interested parties to submit an expression of interest (EOI) in line with the requirements before May 13, 2020. The deadline for the submission of bids is January 2021. The government added that it has plans to develop an additional 200 MW of wind power in the region through another tender in the future.

This tender is the country’s first wind power project and will be developed with technical assistance from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Government of Japan. The government said that this was part of the cooperation agreement between the country and the EBRD to develop 1 GW of wind power in the country. This tender is also part of the government’s much broader large-scale renewable energy strategy to deploy up to 3 GW of cost-effective and environment-friendly wind generation in the next 10 years to meet the country’s rising power demands.

Previously, Mercom reported that the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Uzbekistan invited Expression of Interest (EoI) from international investors to develop nearly 400 MW of solar independent power producer (IPP) projects in the regions of Samarkand and Jizzakh. Each solar project will have a capacity of approximately 200 MW. The scope of work included the development, finance, construction, and operation of the two solar projects.

Earlier, Masdar (or the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) won a bid to develop Uzbekistan’s first public-private partnership solar project under the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) “Scaling Solar” program. Masdar, a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, was to develop a 100 MW utility-scale solar project which will be located in Uzbekistan’s Navoi region.