Alexey Likhachev, head of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, stated that the small nuclear power plant (NPP) project in Uzbekistan's Jizzakh region will bring Russian enterprises orders worth 2 trillion rubles, equivalent to $24.7 billion. This announcement comes a year after the head of Uzbekistan's atomic energy agency Uzatom, Azim Akhmedkhadjayev, promised that the construction cost of the small NPP would not exceed $2 billion.

On March 24, leaders of Uzatom and Rosatom signed two more documents for the construction of Uzbekistan's first NPP. Work has begun on pouring concrete for the nuclear power unit at the construction site in the Farish district. However, financial aspects of the project, including design and estimate documentation parameters, total station cost, and electricity production costs, remain undisclosed.

According to Likhachev, the project will create about a thousand jobs in Russia and yield macroeconomic benefits: return on investment is projected at up to 1.5 rubles per ruble during the construction phase and up to 2 rubles during the operational phase. Uzatom director Akhmedkhadjayev, meanwhile, reported an agreement with Rosatom on purchasing materials for construction, with localization levels expected to be at least 29–30 percent at the current stage.

The project's history dates back to 2017, with initial plans in 2018 for a two-unit NPP with 1,200 MW capacity each. The configuration has since evolved: the current plan involves building two small power units with RITM-200N reactors (55 MW each) and two traditional large units with VVER-1000 reactors at the Farish site. This makes Uzbekistan the first country in the world to host two different types of NPP projects on a single site.

The integrated NPP complex will have a total capacity of 2.1 GW, producing 15.2 billion kWh of electricity annually by 2035, covering about 15 percent of Uzbekistan's current total electricity demand, as reported by Deputy Prime Minister Jamshid Khojaev.

Source: kun.uz