Uzbekistan will be the first Central Asian country to build a solar power plant in a bid to develop clean energy in the region, the head of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Friday. "Earlier this week ADB's board of directors approved a loan of more than $110 million to finance construction of the facility," bank president Takehiko Nakao said.
Speaking at a forum in the capital Tashkent, Nakao said the project would be "the largest in Central Asia and one of the largest in the world."
The 100-megawatt plant will be built by state energy company Uzbekenergo across 400 hectares in the Samarkand region. The total cost of the project is estimated at more than $300 million.