Uzbekistan to start building small NPP in next March, plans to speed up bigger NPP construction
TASHKENT. Aug 11 (Interfax) - A ground-breaking ceremony for a small nuclear power plant (SNPP) in Uzbekistan, to be built with participation of the Russian state corporation Rosaatom, will be held in March 2026 and possibilities are being considered of building a large NPP within a short time period, the Uzbek Atomic Energy Agency's (Uzatom) director Azim Akhmedkhodzhayev said.
"Concrete-pouring already means the beginning of the active phase of the project that will now be in full swing, aimed at construction proper," Akhmedkhodzhayev told the Uzbekistan 24 television channel after informing Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on work progress in the energy industry.
The president had issued the instruction to start building in March 2026, he said on Saturday.
The drafting of the appropriate documentation assessing the project's impact on the environment and safety measures will be completed this year, he said. "The president instructed us to speed up the completion," Akhmedkhodzhayev said.
In addition, Uzbekistan and Rosatom will try to build a larger-capacity NPP sooner, he said. "We will try to build a larger NPP within a short time period and introduce a larger system," Akhmedkhodzhayev said.
In May 2024 Rosatom's engineering division Atomstroyexport and Uzatom's NPP Construction Directorate signed a contract to build an SNPP (with six 55-megawatt reactors). The project has since been changed. "Currently, [the two sides] are discussing specific economic parameters. Two 1,000-megawatt power units and two 55-megawatt power units," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in June 2025. The project for the larger NPP would involve building two VVER-1000 water pressurized reactors with a possibility of increasing them to four, Rosatom said later.
In 2023 it was reported that Rosatom and Uzbekistan, which was experiencing water shortages, discussed possible application of a dry cooling technology in an NPP project. The technology excludes water evaporation during the reactor cooling process.
