China pledges to fund small hydroelectric station on Sardoba reservoir

Project narrative

On May 17, 2017, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced that his government had signed an agreement with the Chinese Government for the construction of a new 15 MW hydroelectric power plant on the Sardoba Reservoir. The agreement was signed during President Mirziyoyev's visit to China in 2017. The most up-to-date official source on the hydroelectric station at the Sardoba reservoir was released on February 19, 2019. It noted that the total cost of three projects ('modernization of Syrdarya thermal power station' and 'Farkhad hydroelectric station,'' and construction of a small hydroelectric station on Sardoba reservoir') would be $275 million. Construction of the reservoir, located in Uzbekistan’s Sirdaryo region, was completed in 2017. It was designed to hold more than 920 million cubic meters of water for irrigation of the region’s agriculture. However, the western wall of a dam around the Sardoba Reservoir broke on May 1, 2020, following a week of heavy rain in the region. Satellite mages acquired on May 8, 2020 -- with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 -- show where that water ultimately collected in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It is unclear if the Chinese Government officially committed funding for this project.