Project features

While Central Asia (CA) electricity trade has increased in the past few years, the potential of regional interconnectivity has remained largely unexploited. Significant technical capacity is in place, but average utilization of the cross-border capacity has been only 2.5% of regional demand and about 40% of interconnection capacity. Development of flagship regional projects as well as large solar and wind parks in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will require scaling-up electricity exchanges and a significant strengthening of regional interconnections within CA and with South Asia. In this context, the World Bank hired the Consultant with an objective to design a regional short-term pilot electricity market for CA, as well as a step-by-step roadmap outlining transition arrangements to move from a pilot to a fully-fledged market.

Services provided

• Contribute to the review and assessment of the available studies on regional electricity trade in CA.
  
• Stock-taking and analysis of relevant studies and inputs on key findings and recommendations
• Assess the status quo of power trade arrangements and its expected evolution in CA, including potential trade volumes to be covered by the proposed market pilot.
• Review and analyse the historical, current and prospective arrangement of power flow and trade in the region and with neighbouring countries, covering technical rules, interconnections, institutional setup, dispatching, power flow, export-import flow, commercial and financial aspects of power flow and trade, as well as relevant policies and regulations.
• Identify the key technical, operational, commercial, financial and other bottlenecks preventing enhanced electricity trade in the region.
• Support in drafting a report on international experience and benchmarking analysis.
• Contribute to assessment of design options for a pilot electricity market in Central Asia
• Assess applicability of specific technical and institutional aspects of design aspects in the CA context.
• Support in drafting ToR for development of detailed design and platform for the agreed pilot market design
• Contribute to preparation of bidding documents for activities underpinning the implementation of the pilot
• Support in designing a roadmap for the development of an electricity market in Central Asia
• Participate and support in organisation and conduction of workshops and study tours
• Prepare relevant inputs for final reports, slide decks, models, training and study tour material