China’s Universal Energy is building a 500 MW wind power plant in the Bulungur district of Uzbekistan’s Samarkand region, in a project valued at $500 million and financed through direct foreign investment.
Project structure shifts toward Samarkand
The project was initially designed as two 250 MW wind farms, one in Samarkand region and the other in Jizzakh region. The relevant agreements were approved by presidential resolutions in May 2024. Universal Energy’s subsidiaries, Peak Wind Alpha and Peak Wind Beta, were named as the project companies, with each providing a $9 million foreign bank guarantee. The planned direct foreign investment was estimated at $500 million in total, or $250 million for each facility.
Recent information from Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy presents the development as a single 500 MW facility in the Bulungur district, without dividing it into separate stages or referring to Jizzakh. Universal Energy’s own project description, meanwhile, identifies the Samarkand development as two wind farms – Peak Wind Alpha with a capacity of 250 MW and Peak Wind Beta with a capacity of 250 MW.
No official explanation has been provided for the apparent adjustment of the original regional structure. The ministry and the company now both focus their descriptions on Samarkand, while the presidential resolutions formally cover Samarkand and Jizzakh regions.
Construction schedule and expected output
Energy Minister Sherzod Khodjaev recently visited the site and reviewed the progress of construction and installation works. The first stage is scheduled for completion by the end of this year, while full commissioning is planned for 2027.
Once operating at full capacity, the wind farm is expected to generate approximately 1.75 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually – enough to correspond to the yearly consumption of around 730,000 households. The project is also forecast to save about 467 million cubic metres of natural gas each year and reduce atmospheric emissions of harmful substances by more than one million tonnes.
Universal Energy says the development will be Uzbekistan’s largest mountain wind power project and the country’s first local project with electricity tariffs denominated in yuan. Its commissioning should increase the share of renewable energy in Uzbekistan’s power system, reduce dependence on natural gas and support more stable electricity supplies.
For international companies in construction, engineering, energy-intensive manufacturing, interior and infrastructure development, the project signals expanding demand for foreign capital, equipment, technical services and industrial supply chains in Uzbekistan. The use of yuan-denominated tariffs may also create a new model for structuring Chinese-backed energy investments, although the unresolved difference between the original two-region plan and the current Samarkand-focused description remains a point for investors to monitor.
