On April 1, Tashkent hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the wind farm project (WPP) in the Zarafshan district of Navoi province from the Emirati company Masdar, the Ministry of Energy said.

The project agreement was signed with Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) in January 2020, then it was reported that the capacity of the power plant would be 400 MW. But in December, the capacity was increased to 500 MW.

On Thursday, Masdar signed an agreement to expand the capacity of the wind farm project in Uzbekistan - from 500 MW to 1.5 GW. The document was endorsed by the General Director of Masdar Mohamed Jamil Al Ramahi (investor), as well as from the Uzbek side, the Deputy Energy Minister Sherzod Khodjaev and Deputy Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Shukhrat Vafoev.

It is expected that in the future this will help Uzbekistan achieve its goals of generating up to 3 GW of energy by 2030 from wind farms and generating 26% of electricity from renewable energy sources, the MIFT reported.

The wind farm in Zarafshan is scheduled to enter commercial operation by the end of 2024. The capacity of 500 MW will allow generating the amount of electricity sufficient to supply 500 thousand houses, as well as prevent the emission of up to 1.1 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year. With the expansion of capacity to 1.5 GW, the figures will increase to 1.5 million homes and 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide, respectively.

To implement the investment project, Masdar has set up a foreign enterprise Shamol Zarafshan Energy in Uzbekistan, which is as a design company.

In March 2020, the Ministry of Energy and ACWA Power signed three agreements worth US$ 2 billion, including the wind farm project, as well as on the purchase of electricity, which will be generated by a gas turbine station planned for construction by a Saudi company in Syrdarya.