European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has introduced a €12 billion clean energy initiative from the EU, encouraging Central Asia to leverage its potential in clean energy and raw materials.

Source: h2-view

The €12 billion Global Gateway Investment Package aims to initiate a series of new projects in Central Asia. Additionally, an Investors Forum will be held in Uzbekistan later this year to facilitate progress.

The region is strategically positioned to take advantage of its abundant critical raw materials, with von der Leyen highlighting that it holds 40% of the global reserves of manganese, along with significant amounts of lithium and graphite.

European businesses are already participating, exemplified by a €1.6 billion investment in the Almalyk copper mine in Uzbekistan.

This region aims to be a clean energy hub: wind in Kazakhstan, solar in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, hydro in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. And geothermal across the region. You could produce enough clean energy for your economy and for export. You could turn part of this energy into clean hydrogen.

^{Speaking at the plenary session of the first EU-Central Asia Summit}

The upcoming Investors Forum is part of an effort to attract private financing for the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, which seeks to enhance connectivity between the five Central Asian nations and Europe.

A significant challenge for landlocked Central Asia is the lack of infrastructure necessary for the production, transportation, and use of green hydrogen, as it requires extensive land transport systems, unlike countries with access to the sea.

Like many nations, the high production cost of green hydrogen is also a challenge; however, this cost is anticipated to decline substantially by 2050 due to advancements in renewable energy technologies.

Progress is underway, with German company Svevind working on a green hydrogen project in Kazakhstan’s Mangystau Region.

Moreover, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced in August that it would finance a pilot hydrogen generation facility in Uzbekistan to aid in the decarbonization of fertilizer production.

Tajikistan is also exploring hydrogen opportunities, with ambitions to produce up to 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2040.