Tajikistan plans to produce 1 million tons of green hydrogen by 2040

Tajikistan wants to produce 1 million metric tons of green hydrogen by 2040 for domestic use and export to neighboring Central Asian nations, according to Minister of Energy and Water Resources Daler Juma.

According to Reuters, Juma, who is in Japan for an energy transition event, said that Tajikistan wanted to have 10 gigatonnes of renewable energy capacity by 2030.

“We are fully reliant on oil product imports… and are developing a strategy for producing green hydrogen,” Juma told Reuters.

Tajikistan, a Central Asian country that buys the majority of its oil products from Russia, generates virtually all of its electricity from hydropower. Tajikistan’s hydropower potential is only around 4% used, according to the International Energy Agency.

Tajikistan intends to create 500,000 tons of green hydrogen by 2030 and treble that amount by 2040 as a result of “cheap competitive electric power,” according to Juma, with 75% of it possibly destined for exports to Central Asian nations that use fossil fuels.

However, because climate change has caused Tajikistan’s glaciers to melt, the government hopes to diversify its energy sources by sourcing 10% of its electricity from sources other than hydropower, such as solar and wind, by 2030, according to Juma.