A recent report by the Eurasian Development Bank titled “Power Sector of Central Asia: Modernization and Energy Transition” looked into the energy sector of Central Asia, including Turkmenistan, and analyzed how electricity is produced, used, and how it can be modernized while lowering emissions to fight climate change. Turkmenistan’s rich natural gas reserves help to supply the electricity to the population while having strong energy security, but transitioning to a cleaner and more efficient energy system is vital for the economy and environment.
The energy trilemma: security, accessibility, sustainability
The concept of Energy Trilemma evaluates and ranks how resilient a nation’s energy systems are. The trilemma has three components:
- Energy Security: an ability of a country to reliably meet current and future energy demand, withstand disruptions, and recover from external shocks.
- Energy Accessibility: Ensuring all households and businesses have access to basic energy services at affordable prices.
- Environmental Sustainability: Minimizing the negative impact of energy supply on the environment and climate.
Turkmenistan has strong energy security thanks to vast natural gas reserves. It also ranks well on energy accessibility due to the high access rate. However, the country scores low on environmental sustainability and have limited progress in energy transition. In the 2025 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) country ranking, Turkmenistan ranks 96th out of 167 countries (the lowest score in Central Asia).
Key data points
- Installed power capacity: 6945 MW;
- Electricity generation: 31.6 TWh/year (99.9% from natural gas);
- Electricity consumption: 26 TWh (in 2024), 35 TWh (projected for 2030);
- Emissions: very high carbon intensity of the GDP of 0.7 kgCO2/USD (global average is 0.25 kgCO2/USD, the rest of Central Asia is 0.25-0.45 kgCO2/USD); the country is in top 5 globally for methane emissions during gas extraction and pipeline transport;
- Renewable energy: 100 MW solar power plant under construction; total planned solar capacity of 300 MW + 10 MW hybrid solar PV-wind power project; Turkmenistan also reportedly has 73 GW potential for offshore wind power in its share of the Caspian Sea;
- Country focus: many other countries focus on increasing renewable power capacities, Turkmenistan is pursuing electricity exports from gas-fired power plants and developing lines to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Key challenges in Turkmenistan
- Aging infrastructure
Electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure across entire Central Asia is aging due to long-term underfunding. Unlike its neighbors which rely on inter-country connections, Turkmenistan operates almost autonomously on its own gas-fired power plants and 500 kV powerlines. Aging infrastructure leads to 15-20% losses of electricity in Central Asia (2-3 times higher than the OECD average). Although exact losses for Turkmenistan are not reported, the report states that Turkmenistan had the world’s highest grid losses.
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Across the region, low-cost or even free electricity tariffs meant people had little incentive to conserve energy. For example, in Turkmenistan, electricity has been free for a long time and currently the average tariff (as of July 2025) stands at <1.0 cents/kWh. Low tariffs lead to very high per capita consumption, growing load on power lines, and means that there is a severe lack of funds for modernization.
A balanced energy transition strategy for Central Asia
The report proposes a practical strategy for Central Asia called the Middle path. Instead of trying to eliminate fossil fuels too fast (which would be costly and needs lots of flexibility options) or being overly conservative (which leads to high greenhouse gas emissions), the Middle path balances reliability, cost, and the environment by focusing on upgrading to more efficient gas power plants, stopping methane leaks, cooperating with neighboring countries to develop grid networks and install renewable capacities that could be exported. For example, solar electricity generated in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan could be exported to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, while hydropower from those countries could support the times with low solar availability.
However, while the report emphasizes the benefits of the Middle path as opposed to Green maximalism or Conservative skepticism, it does not transparently show the modelling assumptions and parameters used to come to this conclusion.
