Kazakhstan plans 13.3 GW of new generation by 2029 to cover data centres

Kazakhstan plans to commission 13.3 GW of generating capacity up to and including 2029, enough to meet all demand, including energy-intensive artificial intelligence infrastructure and large data centres, deputy energy minister Bakytzhan Ilyasov said at a government meeting on 29 October.

Ilyasov said the additions would be made up of 7.4 GW of base-load generation and 5.9 GW of renewable capacity, and that they would leave the country with a 20 per cent surplus of generating capacity. The government's release on the session names AI infrastructure and large data centres among the loads the new plants are meant to cover. It does not say how much of the 13.3 GW is meant for them, which plants would serve them or in which year each plant would come online.

A 27.1 GW system that used more power than it made

The power system now comprises 254 generating sources, 172 of them renewable, with total capacity of 27.1 GW, Ilyasov said. Coal-fired plants account for 13.7 GW, gas-fired plants for 7.1 GW and large hydroelectric plants for 2.5 GW. Last year generation reached a record 123.1 billion kWh, while consumption was 124.6 billion kWh.

Set against installed capacity, the plan would add the equivalent of about 49 per cent of today's system in a little over three years, on Corridor Signal's arithmetic. The release gives no figure for plants to be retired, so the net gain could be smaller.

The plan follows a shorter push for this year. At a government meeting on 13 October a deputy energy minister, Yerlan Akbarov, said Kazakhstan planned to commission about 2.4 GW of conventional capacity in 2026 to reduce the electricity deficit, and that output in the first nine months had reached 91.7 billion kWh, 102 per cent of the level a year earlier, against a full-year forecast of 126.5 billion kWh, the government said. Our report on the nine-month output set those figures against the country's data centre plans.

A 7.8 GW coal programme alongside renewables

Ilyasov also described a national project, "Development of coal generation", with investment projects totalling about 7.8 GW. It covers 19 projects: eight new plants with 5.3 GW and 11 expansion and modernisation projects with 2.5 GW. Among them are the Ekibastuz GRES-3 power station, a thermal plant in Kurchatov and three combined heat and power plants in Kokshetau, Semey and Ust-Kamenogorsk. The release does not say how much of the coal programme falls within the 2029 window, so the 7.8 GW and the 7.4 GW of base load cannot be compared directly.

On renewables, Ilyasov said their share of electricity output reached 8.5 per cent in the first nine months of 2026, against a target of 7 per cent. He cited auctions and large solar initiatives, among them a 300 MW plant by China Energy and Tumar Commerce projects of up to 1 GW, and said at least 8.4 GW of new renewable capacity was expected by the end of 2035, including about 1.8 GW of solar. Small distributed generation for businesses has grown fivefold since 2024 after legislative amendments, he added.

Data centres are a small share on official numbers

The government's most recent data centre capacity figures are far smaller than the generation plan. After a session on 6 October it said data centres with a combined 186 MW were planned for commissioning in 2027, followed by another 109 MW in the second quarter of 2028, and described the Data Center Valley project as having a capacity of at least 1 GW, in its account of the digital strategy session. We reported the 295 MW target at the time.

The 295 MW planned for 2027 and 2028 equals about 2.2 per cent of the 13.3 GW, by our calculation, and the 1 GW described for Data Center Valley would equal about 7.5 per cent. Generating capacity and a data centre's power draw are different measures: a plant's output varies with fuel, weather and maintenance, and the government gives no load factor for either.

Grid connection is a separate question. The national grid operator KEGOC is piloting a demand response mechanism, as our earlier report on the grid described, and the 29 October release does not discuss transmission lines or connection points for large users.

The two releases give three figures to test against later reports: from 29 October, 13.3 GW of new capacity by the end of 2029 and the 20 per cent capacity surplus that is meant to follow; from 13 October, the 2.4 GW of conventional capacity due this year.