Uzbekistan's Energy Ministry will attract China's Energy Construction Group to build solar power stations with a total installed capacity of 2 gigawatts in three regions in 2024, the ministry's press service said on Wednesday.

"A memorandum of understanding has been signed with China Energy Construction Group for the construction of solar photovoltaic power plants in Uzbekistan with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts," the Uzbek Energy Ministry said on its telegraph channel.

The document was signed during Uzbekistan's Energy Minister Zhulabek [gf]2022[/gf] Mirzamak Mudov's visit to China.

Under the framework of the MOU, Chinese companies will directly invest $2 billion to build power plants in three regions of Uzbekistan - Kashqatariya, Bukhara and Samarkand.

The first capacity is scheduled to come on stream by the end of this year, with full capacity in 2024. The stations will generate 5.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year and save 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

The first two solar stations will be built in Uzbekistan in 2021-22. Under the terms of a 25-year public-private partnership, Masdar, a renewable energy company from the United Arab Emirates, and Total Eren, a French renewable energy developer, have each invested 100 megawatts of capacity in Navoy and Samarkand. Masdar also won a tender to build three more plants by autumn 2023, with a total capacity of about 900 megawatts.