Central Asia Partnership

In June 2020, EUPP established a new USEA-Central Asia Partnership to provide technical assistance to Central Asian countries to assist them with meeting their regional energy security priorities and to support USAID regional programming. The objectives of the partnership activities are to enhance the capacity of regional stakeholders for integration of renewable energy generation to meet regional governments’ renewable energy targets; to improve their capacity for system modeling and long-term planning required for the establishment of an interconnected regional power system; to help prepare regional stakeholders for the challenges related to the digitization of manual energy processes and associated cyber-security issues; and to support existing and planned USAID programming on power market development to create an enabling environment for the establishment of a viable regional electricity market.

This assistance will be provided through the two workstreams, regional and bilateral. While bilateral programs will be implemented in four countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the assistance will also target Turkmenistan within the regional component.

In Uzbekistan, the USEA – Central Asia Partnership enhances the capacity of the National Electricity Transmission Company (NETC) for renewable integration, power system modeling and long-term planning. In 2021, USEA provided NETC with dynamic models of Uzbekistan’s power system for the existing network topology, and with planning models – static and dynamic – for 5- and 10-years horizons to include planned renewable generation. These models will help achieve improved efficiency, stability, and reliability of Uzbekistan’s national grid, resulting in reduced power outages and fewer network interruptions, supporting Uzbekistan's ambitious plans to build 8GW of solar and wind capacity by 2030. The ultimate outcome will be the creation of an enabling environment for expanded integration of renewable generation and for the establishment of a unified power system in Central Asia.

A new USEA project on power system stability and reliability studies, scheduled to be launched in the Spring of 2022, will further expand NETC’s capacity for integration of renewable generation while maintaining stability and reliability of the national power grid.