Crossroads Asia | Economy | Central Asia

Uzbekistan’s Nuclear Power Plant Project Advances

Officials say that the first small modular reactor of Uzbekistan’s nuclear power plant project is to be commissioned in 2029.

The head of Uzatom, Uzbekistan’s atomic energy agency, Azim Akhmedkhadjayev said recently that the first small modular reactor of Uzbekistan’s ongoing nuclear power plant (NPP) project is to be commissioned in 2029, while the first large reactor will come online in 2033. The project itself will be completed in 2034-2035. The NPP will produce up to 17 billion kWh of electricity per year, which, according to Akhmedkhadjayev, will amount to 20 percent of the country’s energy production. Current annual production volume is 80 billion kWh.

Having an NPP is not a new dream for Uzbekistan. The first president of the country, Islam Karimov, also understood the need for a nuclear power plant, but never took concrete steps toward its realization. Shavkat Mirziyoyev, however, did not waste any time. In December 2017, just a year after Mirziyoyev came to power, Tashkent and Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation, agreed to build a two-reactor NPP in Uzbekistan. 

In 2019, Tashkent adopted a law “On the Use of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes,” outlining a legal framework that includes state ownership rules, safety protocols, and so on. In 2024, Uzatom was established as an authorized body to implement state policy under the Cabinet of Ministers, replacing the Agency for the Development of Atomic Energy that had existed under the Ministry of Energy. 

After years of negotiation and consideration of several different options, in September 2025, Uzbekistan and Rosatom finally signed an agreement to build an integrated nuclear power plant in Jizzakh with two small modular reactors (SMRs), specifically RITM-200N reactors, with a capacity of 55 megawatts each, and two large VVER-1000 reactors, each generating 1 GW. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbekistan’s Mirziyoyev officially launched the construction of the plant in June this year at a ceremony held in Saint Petersburg.

The project was initially estimated to cost $10-13 billion; however, last month, Uzatom’s Akhmadkhodjayev said that the expected cost is $9.5 billion at most. Even this figure is arguably too big for Uzbekistan, whose external debt is already over $82 billion as of early 2026. Tashkent plans to attract around 85-90 percent of the NPP construction funds in the form of loans from diverse sources, hoping it will return over $165 billion to the state budget. 

Tashkent has been trying to present the project as multilaterally financed; a project free from Russian loans. 

“We are not currently considering Russian money, given all the geopolitical developments,” said Akhmadkhodjayev in March 2025. At the time, the project under consideration consisted of six small modular reactors, which were estimated to have a price tag of just $2 billion. He argued that the construction of the plant would not place Uzbekistan in a debt trap despite most of the money being planned to be borrowed from external actors. 

“They [investors, lenders] will receive the profits generated by the nuclear power plant in the form of dividends. They will not have any involvement in the management [of the plant]. This is stupid,” explained Akhmadkhodjayev. 

Half a year later, after the project had been revised to its final form — consisting of two small modular reactors and two large capacity reactors — the head of the directorate for the construction of nuclear power plants in Uzbekistan, Abdujamil Qalmuratov, voiced a different cost: $1 billion for the small reactors. He said that the money will come from the state budget. 

“Yes, it’s the state budget. The state is building it — it’s a completely Uzbek project. The source of funding is our budget. The nuclear project must be national,” reinstated........

© The Diplomat