The World Bank has approved a 10-year program called REMIT (Regional Electricity Market Development and Power System Integration in Central Asia) with total financing of $1.018 billion, the bank announced Thursday.
The project aims to create a regional electricity market, expand cross-border trade, increase transmission line capacity, and integrate renewable energy sources.
Under the program, electricity trade in the region is expected to reach 15,000 GWh per year, transmission capacity will more than triple to 16 GW, and up to 9 GW of clean energy will be connected to the power systems of Central Asian countries.
The Energy Coordination and Dispatch Center will oversee market and institutional activities, national transmission companies will handle infrastructure investments, and a regional steering committee of Central Asian countries will provide overall program oversight.
REMIT is designed to leverage the region’s complementary resources: hydropower in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, thermal generation in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and growing solar and wind energy potential across all Central Asian countries.
