The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) and Naryn Production Enterprise have agreed on financing for the construction and operation of the 100MW Kulanak hydropower plant in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Kulanak is a new milestone in the Central Asian Water and Energy Complex, and is a key investment mega-project of the EDB. The plant will generate 435 million kWh of electricity per year on average, and will occupy an area of 485.41 hectares on the Naryn River near the village of Kulanak, Naryn Region, Kyrgyz Republic. It will create 835 jobs during the construction and operation phases.
The plant is expected to consolidate the country’s position in Central Asia’s electricity market, reduce energy shortages in the region, which currently only has one 40MW hydroelectricity plant, and improve energy security. It will also improve the operation of water reservoirs for irrigated farming. After its commissioning, the area of irrigated agricultural land in the region will increase by a factor of 1.5 to 6,769 hectares.
The EDB Technical Assistance Fund has financed the verification of this project as green per the international loan principles of the Loan Market Association. The project will prevent the emission of 346,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year.
“The Kulanak HPP is not just a major project under the EDB’s Country Strategy for the Kyrgyz Republic, but also an important link in its Central Asian Water and Energy Complex mega-project,” said Ruslan Dalenov, Vice Chairman of the EDB Management Board. “The commissioning of an additional 100MW of generating capacity in Kyrgyzstan will address capacity shortages in its energy system. This will also provide an opportunity to more effectively distribute the daily loads of solar power plants and wind farms, which are planned to be built in all Central Asian countries.”
The project value is US $117,989,262. The Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund (RKDF) also plans to participate in financing the construction and operation of the hydropower plant on a par with the EDB. The project is supported by the government and is part of the Cabinet of Ministers’ Plan of Action to implement the 2026 National Development Programme.
