Masdar signed an agreement with the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan for extending the capacity of its utility-scale wind farm project to 1.5 GW from the earlier capacity of 500 MW. The project is located in Zarafshan district in the Navoi region of Uzbekistan.
Last year, Masdar signed bilateral agreements with the Government of Uzbekistan to develop, build and operate a 500 MW wind farm project. These included a power purchase agreement and an investment agreement signed with the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan and JSC National Electric Grid of Uzbekistan. The project is expected to attract foreign direct investment of over $600 million and would be Masdar’s second utility-scale renewable energy project in Uzbekistan. The wind project’s construction began on April 1, 2021 and is expected to start operating by the end of 2024.
The was expected to produce sufficient electricity to power 500,000 homes, while displacing 1.1 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. This will now increase to 1.5 million homes and 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide This large-scale project is expected to help Uzbekistan meet its goal of adding 3 GW of wind power and meet 25 percent of its power demand through renewable energy by 2030.
In December 2020, Masdar had also financially closed on a 100 MW capacity project called the Nur Navoi Solar Project. For this project, Masdar signed a power purchase agreement and government support agreement with the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan, winning the project at a tariff of $ 0.02 per kWh at an auction.