Uzbekistan: agrivoltaics over cotton, for the Aral Sea

The Aral Sea all but vanished within a generation, and cotton is one of the largest reasons. Uzbekistan’s cotton fields drew down the rivers, and climate change is drying what is left faster. Can cotton keep growing on less water? That is the question ENVELOPS is asking in Uzbekistan.

A nexus over the cotton field

The shade of agrivoltaic panels cuts evaporation from the field, and their electricity runs a water-saving smart farm and hydroponics, cold storage, processing and the charging of electric vehicles: the whole farming cycle around one crop, tied together on renewable energy, the Agrivoltaic Smart Farm Nexus for Carbon-Free Cotton. It is planned at about 1 MW on a 5 ha trial site of Tashkent State Agrarian University, and a pre-feasibility study is in progress under an ODA programme of Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment. The first pre-feasibility meeting was held in August 2026 with the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, the National Committee on Ecology and Climate Change and the university, and in September a field mission to Tashkent met government agencies and walked the candidate site on the university’s practical farm.

Next

If the study confirms feasibility, construction is targeted for 2028, and ODA is only the start. Through cooperation between Korea and Uzbekistan on internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs), the emission reductions would be transferred to Korea, and a private project of up to 20 MW would carry the model across Uzbekistan’s cotton belt and Central Asia. Adaptation and mitigation, a Korean company abroad and a government’s mitigation record meet in one project.