ADB finances Mongolia's first private sector project

ULAN BATOR -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Mongolian company Tenuun Gerel Construction LLC on Wednesday signed a loan agreement for 18.7 million U.S. dollars for a solar power plant project with a capacity of 15 megawatts.

"The ADB has provided financial assistance to private sector projects of many countries. The loan agreement for the solar project is the ADB's first co-financing with the Leading Asia's Private Infrastructure Fund (LEAP) in Mongolia's renewable energy sector," Yolanda Fernandez Lommen, ADB country director for Mongolia, said at the signing ceremony.

The construction of the solar power plant called "Bukhug" began in May 2018 and was completed in December, according to Tenuun Gerel Construction.

"I am very happy that our company became the first Mongolian private company which received funding from the ADB," Sukhbaatar Odbaatar, director of the company, told Xinhua.

"Initially, our company built the plant with its own funding. Today, we replaced the money spent on the construction of the plant with the low interest loan from the ADB," Odbaatar said.

The solar power plant started supplying electricity to Mongolia's central grid system since the beginning of this year and it can generate 29.3 million kwh of electricity per year to the country's national power grid, Odbaatar said.

Mongolia currently has around 18 percent of its power generated from renewable energy, including solar and wind. It aims to make renewable energy use account for 20 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030.