Hoping to become a regional renewable energy leader in Central Asia, Kazakhstan and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have signed an accord to develop a long-term cooperation strategy to achieve carbon neutrality of the country’s power sector by 2060.
Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister Nurlan Nogayev and EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso signed the roadmap for the decarbonisation strategy on March 31.
The EBRD and Kazakhstan will cooperate, among other things, on the development of renewable energy and the carbon market, the enhancement of the electrical grid and the decommissioning of old thermal capacity, the Bank said, adding that the EBRD is committed to financing renewable energy projects implemented through an auction mechanism in order to promote competitive pricing and to stimulate investment in renewable energy.
“We are pleased to help Kazakhstan develop its energy sector in line with the global decarbonisation agenda,” Renaud-Basso said. “Our partnership in the area of sustainable energy began over a decade ago and, based on the country’s achievements to date, Kazakhstan is right on track to achieve the new ambitious target of carbon neutrality.”
For his part, Nogayev said longstanding cooperation with the EBRD is helping Kazakhstan achieve its development goals in the energy sector. “Jointly, we search for innovative solutions to enable the sector’s sustainable development and this is an important foundation for our present and future work. Today’s memorandum will shape our cooperation for years to come,” the Kazakh Energy Minister said.
The EBRD is supporting the country’s renewable energy drive, with 14 projects worth $535 million financed to date.
