https://uzenergynews.com/ Independent global energy and market intelligence with editorial depth in Eurasia — Top Stories and Weekly Insight on Uzbekistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Turkiye and Pakistan. en UzEnergyNews Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0300 https://uzenergynews.com/og-image.png https://uzenergynews.com/ https://uzenergynews.com/ us-japan-korea-smr-pact-2026-07-13 Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0300 Top Story On 8 July 2026, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, the United States, Japan and South Korea signed a non-binding Memorandum of Cooperation to accelerate small modular reactor (SMR) deployment in third countries, with an initial focus on the Indo-Pacific. The allied fleet centres on the 300 MWe BWRX-300 (GE Vernova/GE Hitachi), already licensed for construction in Canada; the only firm money attached is a US pledge of more than USD 10 million to the FIRST programme. The official State Department text names no rival, but analysts read it as an allied bid to contest the reactor-export dominance of Russia's Rosatom (a roughly USD 200 billion overseas order book) and China's CNNC. The IEA reports more than 70 GW of nuclear capacity under construction worldwide. Central Asia — from Uzbekistan's Jizzakh plant to Kazakhstan's first reactor at Ulken — already leans toward Russian technology, making the region a test of allied intent. https://uzenergynews.com/analysis/water-is-the-real-grid-global.html wi11-water-is-the-real-grid-2026-07-08 Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0300 Weekly Insight The global power system is, physically, a water system. Water generates electricity (hydropower supplied 14.3% of global power in 2024, IHA; the 2023 global drought pushed the hydro capacity factor below 40%, its weakest in three decades, IEA), cools thermal and nuclear plants (~41% of US water withdrawals, USGS; over 60% of the world's power plants face reduced output by 2040-2069, van Vliet et al.), sustains the data centres now driving demand (~415 to ~945 TWh by 2030, IEA), and is embedded in green hydrogen (~9 L of purified water per kg, Beswick et al.) and critical minerals. About 40% of the world lives in transboundary basins (UN WWDR 2024), and mega-dams from the Nile to the Mekong turn generation into another state's water-security question. A capacity plan that treats water as a free constant is incomplete. This Weekly Insight opens the UzEnergyNews water-energy column. https://uzenergynews.com/ ei-statistical-review-2026-renewables-turkiye Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0300 Top Story The Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2026 (75th edition) finds that, outside recession years, renewables became the single largest source of growth in total energy supply for the first time, with solar generation up 30% and overtaking wind in the global electricity mix (8.7% vs 8.4%, almost level with nuclear at 8.8%). Fossil fuels still supply 86% of total energy and electricity demand rose 3%. Türkiye illustrates the capacity story most sharply: installed solar rose from 250 MW in 2015 to 25,469 MW in 2025 — a roughly hundredfold increase (58.8% CAGR) — with wind at 14,781 MW. Renewable capacity figures per IRENA (2026) as reproduced in the Review; the Review does not publish a separate installed-capacity line for Uzbekistan. https://uzenergynews.com/ turkiye-tpao-pakistan-2026-07-08 Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0300 Top Story Türkiye's state oil company TPAO signed exploration and production agreements on 2 December 2025 with six Pakistani firms — Mari Energies, Fatima, OGDCL, PPL, Prime and GHPL — for three offshore blocks in Pakistani waters and two onshore blocks. The package is worth more than USD 300 million, with about USD 80 million committed to exploration and a potential total near USD 1 billion at production. TPAO will operate the Eastern Offshore Indus-C block, with seismic surveys expected in 2026 — extending Türkiye's upstream footprint into South Asia. https://uzenergynews.com/analysis/summer-grid-stress.html wi10-summer-grid-stress-2026-07-04 Sat, 04 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0300 Weekly Insight The 2026 heat season has turned the network into a live reliability test. PJM, the largest US grid, forecast a record 166,147 MW and secured emergency orders to curtail data centres; French nuclear output was cut as rivers warmed and Belgium set a €1/kWh price record. In Türkiye, summer is now the annual peak — a record above 59 GWh on 28 July 2025, 18% of it cooling — and each 1°C adds about 0.77 GW of need. Storage, demand response and interconnection are the shock absorbers. https://uzenergynews.com/ uzbekistan-rab-tariff-2026-07-02 Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0300 Top Story Alongside the 1 June 2026 tariff reset, Uzbekistan set out a Regulatory Asset Base (RAB) methodology for electricity and gas: prices are tied to regulated network asset value and a defined return (after-tax WACC of about 14-16%), with annual inflation-linked adjustments capped at 10%. Projected component increases run to generation ~9%, transmission ~30%, distribution ~10% and gas distribution ~23%, part of it cushioned by the state budget — a shift meant to make network investment bankable. https://uzenergynews.com/analysis/grid-investment-wave.html wi9-grid-investment-wave-2026-06-27 Sat, 27 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0300 Weekly Insight Generation investment now runs about 2.5 times grid investment, making the network the binding constraint on the energy transition. Around 1,500 GW of ready renewable projects sit in connection queues; global grid spending must rise from ~$400bn a year toward $600bn+ by 2030, with the widest gap in emerging markets. Türkiye's new $80bn network commitment is a case in point. https://uzenergynews.com/ turkiye-elder-grid-50bn-2026-06-26 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0300 Top Story At its 25 June press conference in Istanbul, Türkiye's electricity distribution association set the 2026–2035 distribution investment requirement at an estimated $50–60 billion, of which $18.5 billion is the EPDK-approved ceiling for the fifth tariff period. The figures place Türkiye within a global grid-investment wave. https://uzenergynews.com/ bnef-turkiye-factbook-cop31-2026-06-24 Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0300 Top Story BloombergNEF's Türkiye Transition Factbook ranks the country in the global top ten for wind and solar additions but finds the binding constraint is now the grid: the 2050 net-zero pathway needs about five times today's capacity and close to $1 trillion of power-sector investment, with $30 billion of transmission required by 2035. https://uzenergynews.com/analysis/world-electricity-ecosystem.html wi8-world-electricity-ecosystem-2026-06-23 Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0300 Weekly Insight The value of electricity consumed worldwide is about $4.6 trillion a year, roughly 3.9% of global GDP, behind a generation fleet of 10,425 GW set to nearly triple by 2050. Our new open dataset sizes the market and the fleet for fifteen economies, calibrated to Türkiye's published figure. https://uzenergynews.com/ aiib-uzbekistan-green-economy-2026-06-22 Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0300 Top Story The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is advancing $250 million for the second phase of Uzbekistan's green-economy reform program, supporting the country's energy transition and policy reforms. https://uzenergynews.com/ uzbekistan-clean-energy-30-2026-06-20 Fri, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0500 Top Story First-half 2026 data show solar, wind and hydropower at close to 30% of installed capacity, with renewable generation up 23%. Uzbekistan plans 6.7 GW of new capacity this year and has raised its 2030 renewables target to 54%. But with more than half of distribution assets past their service life, the binding constraint is now the grid — and the roughly $4 billion needed to modernise it. https://uzenergynews.com/ hormuz-oil-2026-06-19 Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0500 Top Story Washington and Tehran have signed an interim peace deal that reopens the Strait of Hormuz and lets Iran sell oil again. Brent fell below $80 for the first time since March, down about 38% from its April peak. Caspian crude never used Hormuz — but the price drop squeezes Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and reinforces the case for the region's alternative corridors. https://uzenergynews.com/#analysis wi7-water-real-grid-2026-06-17 Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0500 Weekly Insight Central Asia's regional electricity market and its Trans-Caspian green corridor both depend on the unresolved upstream-winter-power versus downstream-summer-water conflict. The fix is a trade, not a dam: a 2025 Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan electricity-for-water swap and shared ownership of the $4.2bn, 1,860 MW Kambarata-1, set against Tajikistan's $6.2bn Rogun and a tightening climate. https://uzenergynews.com/ caspian-green-corridor-2026-06 Tue, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0500 Top Story Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are developing a subsea power cable across the Caspian Sea, designed to carry about 4 GW from 2032 and 6 GW later. With ADB and AIIB backing a feasibility study due in 2026-2027, the project would turn Central Asia's solar and wind into an export to Europe — with Azerbaijan as the hub. https://uzenergynews.com/ central-asia-power-market-2026-06 Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0500 Top Story A Soviet-era unified ring, dismantled after Turkmenistan (2003) and Uzbekistan (2009) left it, is being rebuilt — not as a command system run from one control room, but as a traded regional market. The World Bank's REMIT program commits $1.018 billion to lift cross-border capacity to 16 GW and at least double electricity trade. https://uzenergynews.com/ pakistan-distributed-solar-2026-06 Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0500 Top Story Most new capacity came not from a state plan but from rooftops. Official records show ~6.8 GW; independent estimates put the total at 27-33 GW — much of the transition is happening outside official statistics.