Masdar wins $100m Uzbek solar deal
Abu Dhabi’s Masdar won the bid for a $100 million (Dh367m) utility-scale solar planned project in Uzbekistan after submitting the lowest tariff, said the company’s clean energy head.
The Mubadala-owned company filed a bid a little below 2.7 US cents for the 100 megawatt project, which will be the Central Asian country’s first solar photovoltaic scheme developed under a public-private partnership model.
The project in Uzbekistan’s Navoi region will be developed under the International Finance Corporation’s Scaling Solar programme, which will fund 60 per cent of the project’s cost, said Yousif Al Ali, acting executive director at Masdar for clean energy.
“The IFC, other than giving bankable documentation, they are also providing the loan,” Mr Al Ali told The National.
“They’re giving the financing for the project.”
“For us this initiative by the IFC helps us to get an assurance that we’re dealing with a high standard of implantation and we’re very comfortable with it.”
Financing for the project is likely to be completed in the first quarter of 2020 with construction expected to take a year.
The investment follows the visit of the Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Abu Dhabi in March, when both sides signed partnership agreements worth $10 billion.
The agreements were regarding collaborations in power and renewables as well as oil and gas.
Uzbekistan, which borders large oil and gas producers Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, has hydrocarbon reserves but is not a massive operator in the sector.
The country has an ambitious plan to develop 5 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 to diversify its power mix, with the IFC’s Scaling Solar scheme expected to help install at least 1GW of capacity.
The utility-scale project, for which Masdar was the preferred bidder, is the country’s first renewables project offered through a competitive bidding process.
More investments in the sector are likely to be channelled though bilateral agreements in place between the UAE and Uzbekistan, said Mr Al Ali.