Uzbekistan has no plan to construct nuclear plant: Uzbekenergo
By Aynur Jafarova
Uzbekistan has no plan to construct a nuclear power plant inside the country.
It was announced by Uzbekistan's state joint stock company Uzbekenergo, Trend Agency reported on August 5.
"No nuclear power plant project is included in the Uzbekistan's industrial development and annual investment programs," Uzbekenergo said.
Earlier, some foreign media outlets said the Uzbek government plans to build a nuclear power plant in the coming years.
Currently, 28 major investment projects are being implemented in Uzbekistan on the modernization and reconstruction of existing facilities.
Uzbekistan plans to implement 48 investment projects, including 15 projects for modernization and development of thermal power plants with an input operational capacity of 2,329 megawatts and nine hydropower projects with a capacity of 63.8 megawatts by 2015.
These projects will be implemented in accordance with the decree of Uzbek President Islam Karimov "on the priorities of industrial development of Uzbekistan in 2011-2015."
Uzbek State Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources said the proven and estimated reserves of uranium in the country amount to 185,800 tons. Uzbekistan is not a consumer of uranium products, and all produced uranium is exported.
Currently, there are 45 power plants in the energy system of Uzbekistan with a total capacity of approximately 13,000 MW. The main share of electricity is produced by 10 thermal power plants of Uzbekenergo with a total installed capacity of 11.6 million kW.
In 2013, Uzbekistan increased the electricity production by 3.2 percent compared to 2012 and produced 54.207 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Uzbekistan has also intensified work on enhanced use of alternative energy sources, in particular solar and wind energy.
In early 2013, Uzbekistan developed a set of measures for development of alternative sources of energy.
Presently, 97 percent of Uzbekistan's structure of primary fuel and energy resources accounts for oil and gas, 2.3 percent for coal and 0.7 percent for hydropower while the share of renewable energy in Uzbekistan does not exceed one percent.
The potential of solar energy in the country with 300 sunny days per year constitutes about 51 billion tons of oil equivalent.
Local experts believe with the current tendencies and volumes of resource consumption, the natural gas and coal reserves in Uzbekistan will last only for the next 20-30 years, while oil reserves are almost depleted.