World Bank lends Uzbekistan $150 million for small hydropower development

Uzbekistan secured a $150 million concessional World Bank credit, approved June 25 2025, to develop small hydropower plants under a 2025-2030 national programme. The decentralised, irrigation-canal-based hydropower model offers Indian rural-electrification planners a low-maintenance template for distributed renewable capacity.

Uzbekistan secured a $150 million concessional World Bank credit, approved June 25 2025, to advance small hydropower plants (SHPPs) under the Uzbekistan Small Hydropower Development Project. Implemented by the Ministry of Energy from 2025 to 2030, it will support up to 150 MW of new capacity, generating more than 520 gigawatt-hours of green electricity annually and cutting roughly 430,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions. Electricity demand is projected to double by 2030 to over 120 billion kilowatt-hours, with about 10% of current demand unmet due to grid inefficiencies.

Beneficiaries include rural and underserved communities facing routine outages, local private developers, commercial banks, and small and medium enterprises in engineering, construction, and operation. The government aims to establish nearly 3,000 SHPPs by 2026, targeting 160 MW of installed capacity to benefit an estimated 280,000 additional residents. SHPPs range from 100 kilowatts to 5 megawatts, with 93% of identified sites under 1,000 kW. JSC Regional Electric Power Networks will purchase output, integrating it into the national grid.

Green-finance teams and frontier-market investors should monitor the project's parallel financing structure, with local financial institutions receiving project-linked credit lines designed to catalyse $38 million in private-sector investment. Indian developers exploring distributed hydropower can study the use of the existing irrigation-canal network for low-maintenance generation. Watch implementation milestones through 2030, alignment with Uzbekistan's 2030 energy strategy and Paris Agreement commitments, and the public-private cooperation model the World Bank is positioning as replicable across Central Asia.

Key figure — World Bank credit: $150 million concessional, approved June 25 2025