Tag Archives: solar

EBRD loans Kazakhstan €200m to develop renewables

ALMATY, DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledged to give Kazakh businessmen 200m euros to improve the country’s renewable energy sector.

For the EBRD the motivation is to boost Kazakhstan’s green energy production. Solar and wind generate only around 1% of Kazakhstan’s power at the moment. Hydro produces around 13% of its power and the rest is generated by smoke belching coal-powered stations.

“Once all the projects come on- stream, annual CO2 emissions are expected to reduce by about 600,000 tonnes, which would help the country to achieve its commitments to cut emissions under the Paris climate agreement,” the EBRD said in a statement.

The 2015 Paris Agreement was a global deal to cut carbon emissions.

Kazakhstan may once have turned its nose up at taking EBRD cash to produce green energy. Now, though, it is happy to go along with the concept. It is struggling to see off a steep economic downturn that has hit its revenues. Oil and gas are its major exports but prices have halved.

And, alongside a fall in revenues, Kazakhstan also needs to boost power. Its population has swelled and grown richer, demanding more power.

It still needs to replace a nuclear power station that was decommissioned in the 1990s. Plans to build a replacement have been scrapped for the time being and a thermal power plant that was being built on the shores of Lake Balkhash with South Korea has also been ditched this year because it was too expensive.

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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

Uzbekistan signs solar tech contract with China

DEC. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — China’s Singyes Solar Technologies won a contract to design, build and operate a 100MW solar farm in Uzbekistan, media reported. The $147m project, located near Samarkand, is the biggest overseas project won by Singyes. State- owned Uzbekenergo is the client, although the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is the main financier of the project. The ADB wants Uzbekistan to generate more of its power via renewable energy.

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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

Russian company launches Bukhara power station

APRIL 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Eriell, a Russian oil service company, and Enesol, a UAE-based renewable energy company, said they have launched a 1.2MW mobile solar station, the first of its kind in the Commonwealth of Independent States to power Lukoil’s upstream operations in Kandym, near the border with Turkmenistan. Eriell is one of Lukoil’s largest suppliers in Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Uzbekistan boosts solar sector

DEC. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek government has signed a decree that will allow people and small businesses to sell electricity they generate via solar panels to the state for the first time, media reported.

Potentially this edict is a small scale way of giving private entrepre- neurship a boost. As the website norma.uz reported earlier this year, there are a number of small businesses producing solar power electricity in Uzbekistan.

With its long, hot, cloudless summers, Uzbekistan is ripe for solar power.

Earlier this year, Uzbekistan launched a $700m project to build three solar panel farms to generate electricity.

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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)

Azerbaijan to finance solar plants in Germany and Turkey

OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Akim Badalov, head Azerbaijan’s State Agency on Renewable Energy sources, said Azerbaijan will finance the construction of two small solar power plants in Germany and Turkey. The capacity of the prospective solar plant in Germany is 10 megawatts, according to the Trend news agency. Although still marginal, Azerbaijan’s interest in renewable energy has grown steadily in recent years.

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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Kazakh President snubs green energy

SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev hinted at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that he may not be as enamoured with green energy as he has suggested.

This is important because Kazakhstan’s government has spent time and money promoting itself as a standard bearer for Green Energy, including devoting much of the sales pitch of its centrepiece event EXPO-2017 in Astana to it.

“I personally do not believe in alternative energy, such as wind, and solar,” media quoted Mr Nazarbayev as saying after meeting Mr Putin in Atyrau on the Caspian Sea coast.

“I think the shale euphoria also does not make much sense. Oil and gas are our main horses and we do not need to be afraid that they are fossil fuels.”

This view may not be that surprising, afterall the economies of both Kazakhstan and Russia are based on oil and gas exports.

Even so, Kazakhstan has given the impression it wants to move on from its reliance on oil and gas for its wealth.

Throughout Kazakhstan’s cities advertise EXPO-2017 with posters carrying the slogan ‘The Energy of the Future’ against a background of a green valley filled with wind turbines and solar panels.

Kazakhstan’s future energy policy is further complicated because it has agreed a deal with Russia to build a new nuclear power station.

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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)

Turkmenistan promotes solar power

JUNE 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered the Academy of Science to set up a solar power institute to examine whether the renewable energy can be generated on an industrial basis, media reported. Turkmenistan sees itself as a regional energy super-power. It has signed deals to supply a third of China’s gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

South Korean leader visits Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – South Korean president Park Geun-hye started a six day trip to Central Asia by visiting Tashkent.

There Ms Guen-hye pledged to increase cooperation in gas and solar power sector.

This was just the first stage in an important Central Asia trip for the South Korean leader. Ms Guen-hye now travels to Astana and then to Ashgabat laying down a serious marker in the region.

Central Asia is a natural region for South Korea to look to carve out an overseas trade foothold. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ensured that this was the case.

In the 1930s, worried about their loyalty, Stalin moved hundreds of thousands of Koreans living in the east of the Soviet Union to Central Asia. Most settled around Tashkent or Almaty.

Now both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have large Korean minorities. Many ethnic Koreans are involved in business and some in politics. There are Korean restaurants in cities in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and transport links with Seoul are well-established.

Ms Geun-hye is looking to leverage these ties to ensure that South Korea is able to tap into the region’s energy reserves as well as putting Korean companies in a good position to do business.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Uzbekistan develops solar power

NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan clearly wants to burnish its solar power credentials.

It has discussed these credentials at length since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and now appears to be taking a major step towards realising them.

The president of the Asia Development Bank, Takehiko Nakao, said that it had agreed a $110m loan to help finance the construction of a solar panel park near Samarkand. The Uzbek government has agreed to spend another $190m on the project.

The plan is to cover an area roughly the size of 560 football pitches (soccer pitches for our American readers) with solar panels.

It’s certainly ambitious, and so it should be. Sun drenches Uzbekistan for most of the year making it a good bet for solar power.

Solar power represents part of the answer to Uzbekistan’s power problems but only if the authorities don’t sell the electricity that the site generates abroad.

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

Uzbekistan plans massive solar plant

NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank unveiled plans to build a solar panel plant in Uzbekistan the size of 560 football pitches. If successful, the plant could become an important source of energy for Uzbekistan which experiences regular shortages.

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)