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)
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)
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.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
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.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
JUNE 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — As a statement of intent it was emphatic. Kazakhstan’s environmental protection minister Nurlan Kapparov told a news briefing in Astana on June 5 that the state would invest $3.2b a year until 2050 on developing alternative sources of power to reduce its reliance on coal.
Mr Kapparov said that this was the equivalent of 1% of Kazakhstan’s annual total GDP.
This scale of commitment is genuinely large and will put Kazakhstan in the top league of countries committed to reducing their reliance on coal-fired power stations.
Currently, coal-fired power stations generate about 80% of Kazakhstan’s power needs.
The initiative to push for green alternative power sources is an indicator of a developed economy, just the sort of image that Kazakhstan wants to project. It is also part of Kazakhstan’s wider policies for both power production and for winning EXPO-2017. One of the themes of EXPO-2017 is green energy.
Kazakhstan has already made headway in developing alternative energy. This year it has announced initiatives to boost wind, hydro-electric, solar and nuclear power.
Mr Kapparov said that he wanted to see green energy make up half of Kazakhstan’s total production by 2050.
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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
FEB. 16 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ABD) and the Uzbek government inaugurated construction of a solar power research institute in Tashkent. The ADB plans to develop solar power across the region and wants the International Solar Energy Institute to become a global centre of excellence.
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(News report from Issue No. 78, published on Feb. 23 2012)
MARCH 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps with an eye on rising demand in China, Kazakhstan’s state-owned nuclear agency will build a solar panel factory, said its head Vladimir Shkolnik. Kazatomprom will invest about $230m in the factory in Astana. The factory will take two years to build and an unnamed French company will partner with Kazatomprom in the project.
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(News report from Issue No. 31, published on March 14 2011)
