Uzbekistan Energy System to Undergo Stress Audit

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — A Centre for Digitalisation of the Fuel and Energy Complex and Artificial Intelligence Implementation will be established within Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy. The new centre will conduct a stress audit of the country’s entire energy system and prepare several development scenarios, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said on 27 July at a meeting on energy issues.

The centre will assess the entire “production — transmission — distribution — supply” chain, as well as coal, liquefied gas and fuel oil supply systems. Based on the audit, several scenarios for the further development of the energy sector are to be developed.

Particular attention will be paid to workforce efficiency. Regional Electric Networks employs 25,000 people, while Hududgazta’minot has 16,000 employees. According to the authorities, the lack of a digital workforce management system prevents the heads of electricity and gas supply organisations from obtaining complete information about the daily work of each employee.

The meeting noted that labour productivity in the energy sector is 1.5-2 times lower than in other countries, while resolving outages takes three to four times longer.

To improve efficiency, a digital system for managing employees’ daily work is planned to be introduced. Ten key performance indicators (KPIs) will be established for 106,000 workers across the energy system.

The indicators will include emergency and planned outages, loss levels, outstanding receivables, reserve capacity and implementation of maintenance programmes.

In addition, data from automated electricity and gas control and metering systems — ASKUE and ASKUG — will be analysed using artificial intelligence. A platform will also be launched to identify suspicious changes in meter readings and other data.