Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Bidder details announced for Uzbekistan's 200MW solar PV station

19 May 2021, 2:27 am

A solar photovoltaic (PV) power station project in Uzbekistan has moved to the next stage of the procurement process with the announcement of the details of four of the bids for the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-backed project.

The 200 megawatts (MW) solar PV project, in the Sherabad district of the Surkhandarya region, is part of a programme to created 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar PV capacity. The ADB is the transaction advisory provider for the programme.

The 200MW project will be under a public private partnership (PPP) model and will sell generated electricity to the JSC National Electric Networks of Uzbekistan (NENU) under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA).

The details of four of the bids received as part of the initial tender process have announced. The proposed contracted capacity of Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC (Masdar) is 457MW at a price of 1.8045 cents per kWh for electricity, International Company for Water and Power Projects (ACWA Power) proposed a 354MW contracted capacity at a price of 2.4825 cents per kWh , Jinko Power (HK) Co. Ltd. and China Power Holding International proposed a 500 MW capacity with price at 2.1621 cents per kWh, Consortium of Total Eren S.A. Total Solar and TOTAL SOLAR INTL proposed 400MW capacity at a price of 3.3940 cents per kWh.

The winning bidder will be announced after the financial proposals have been evaluated.

Infrastructure expert John Yeap at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law, said: “The result of this tender is tremendously exciting for Uzbekistan, and it also continues the significant trending down of solar PV prices in geographical areas with good solar irradiation and large available land mass. The success of this tender process can be attributed to several factors, including ADB’s transparent process based on international best practices, and structured on the basis of a risk allocation within the PPP framework that was well received by bidders and financiers. This result bodes well for the success of future such tenders.”

The tender was launched in February 2020 and 54 international companies expressed interest in the implementation of the project in March 2020.

In December 2020, the Uzbekistan energy ministry announced a teaser for Sherabad phase 2. Another solar power station will be built next to the 200 MW under Sherabad phase 1.