"USAID’s Central Asia Regional Electricity Market Activity" was published in the October 2021 edition of QazaqGreen. Authors: Armen Arzumanyan, Pedro Rubiou and Pramod Jain.
Russian: https://spaq.kz/images/080921/QG_RU_2.pdf
English: https://spaq.kz/images/QG_EN_2.pdf
Summary
Individual countries in Central Asia, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, have set ambitious targets to increase the share of renewable generation. To meet these targets, these governments will need to develop diverse technical solutions to minimize the cost of integration of variable generation. This article presents various solutions, based on accepted practice, to assess and mitigate the impacts of variable renewable generation at the regional level. The technical solutions focus on mitigating the impacts of RE on the grid through upgrades to the transmission system and system operations, and adoption of regional electricity market and balancing area. One of the lowest cost solutions is to increase the balancing area to encompass the entire Central Asian region, thereby sharing reserves and coordinating scheduling and operation. As discussed, these solutions can be effectively implemented in a functional and coordinated regional power market. At present, the USAID-funded CAREM Activity is supporting the Central Asian governments to develop the rules, procedures and institutional arrangements to create this market and increase the deployment and development of renewable generation throughout Central Asia.
