PPPDA: French firm starts managing Tashkent’s heat supply system

The French company “Veolia Energy” has started to take over the full management of “Toshissiqquvvati”, the Public-Private Partnership Development Agency reports. 

On September 29-30, 2021, the Ministry of Finance, Tashkent city administration and Veolia Energy Tashkent within the framework of the "Economic Forum of Uzbekistan" signed a state support agreement that transfers the full maintenance and control of the centralized heat supply system of the city of Tashkent.
According to the document, the heat supply of Tashkent city was given to the French company Veolia (private partner) for a period of 30 years under the terms of a public-private partnership. In the first 2 years, as a pilot project, 118 apartment buildings and 43 social facilities in the Bektemir and Sergeli districts will be modernized, that is, they will be transferred to a closed system.

The French partner is obliged to revamp a total of 181 facilities and boiler rooms, build 575.6 kilometres of heat networks, reconstruct 841.1 kilometres of networks, and install 51.5 thousand units of heat and 2 464.6 thousand units of hot water meters. 
In order to prevent a sharp increase in utility tariffs, 8.4 trillion soums of subsidies will be allocated from the Tashkent city budget in 2021-2027 to apply reduced tariffs to the population and compensate for the losses. 10% of the net profit from the project will be allocated to the private partner, and the rest will go to the Fund established under the Tashkent city administration. The fund will also receive state subsidies and the part of payments from consumers allocated for capital repairs.
As a result of the project, the efficiency of heat supply will increase by 50% and heat loss will be reduced from 44% to 20%. Annual consumption of natural gas will be saved by 45%, electricity consumption by 25%, and drinking water consumption by 40%. Also, during the project period, a total of 9.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas, 3.1 billion kilowatts of electricity and 1.1 billion cubic meters of drinking water will be saved, and a total of 13.6 trillion soums will be saved.