BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 27. President Shavkat
Mirziyoyev ordered the creation of a special task force to overhaul
electricity and gas supply in Yangiyol District, saying the
district would serve as a pilot for nationwide energy sector
reforms.
This was reflected in the statement published by the official
channel of the Press Secretary to the President of the Republic of
Uzbekistan following a government meeting on the industry's
priorities.
The task force will be headed by newly appointed Energy Minister Sherzod Khodjaev, with Yangiyol
District Governor San'at Jumaniyozov serving as deputy.
Within two weeks, officials are to assess the monthly, quarterly
and annual electricity and gas demand of households and businesses
across the district's 51 neighborhoods, creating a detailed energy
consumption balance to guide future infrastructure investment.
The government will identify where transformers, gas
distribution facilities and power lines need to be upgraded,
replace electricity and gas meters that are incompatible with the
country's automated metering systems, and restore data transmission
from non-functioning devices.
Mirziyoyev also ordered the development of a separate program to
halve electricity and gas losses, with funding sources to be
identified from both state-owned utility companies and local
government revenues.
Large industrial consumers will undergo energy audits and
receive bank financing to adopt more energy-efficient technologies,
while energy consumption at schools, kindergartens, hospitals,
clinics and vocational colleges will also be assessed.
Authorities will inspect heating systems in apartment buildings
and conduct door-to-door campaigns to reduce overdue utility
payments. The work is scheduled for completion by Oct. 1, after
which Yangiyul is expected to become a model district for reliable
electricity and gas supply.
Mirziyoyev said the Yangiyul model would subsequently be rolled
out across Uzbekistan, with senior energy executives assigned to
the most challenging district in each region to implement the
reforms by the end of the year.
The president also ordered the establishment of a Center for
Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in the Fuel and Energy
Sector within the Energy Ministry.
The center will conduct a "stress audit" of the country's energy
supply chain—from generation and transmission to distribution—as
well as coal, liquefied gas and fuel oil supplies, before
developing multiple scenarios for the sector's future
development.
Officials will introduce a digital management system to monitor
the daily work of employees, while artificial intelligence will
analyze data from the country's automated electricity and gas
metering systems (ASKUE and ASKUG) to detect suspicious consumption
patterns.
The government will also introduce 10 key performance indicators
(KPIs) for the energy sector's 106,000 employees, measuring
performance based on planned and unplanned outages, network losses,
overdue receivables, reserve capacity and progress on maintenance
programs.
