Jul 29, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min · 12 segments
Mongolia sits at the crossroads of energy, mining, and innovation. This resource-rich but underdeveloped country has become increasingly central to the story of AI-driven demand. In this episode…
Enkhtur LkhagvajavGuestTerry RimboltHostAnd it was very helpful that you described sort of your experience with PF in Mongolia.
And you also mentioned the challenges that Mongolia was facing in the energy industry for the past decade or so.
So can you give the listeners the shape of Mongolia's power systems today? dynamic over the past 10 years.
So from capacity fuel mix to import dependence and why the geography makes it hard.
And if there are any sort of projects that you worked on that helped to address those challenges over the past 10 years, and it's changing a lot, especially with large scale mining and infrastructure projects, as you mentioned earlier.
A decade on, why has solar been built? Is the binding constraint resource grid, offtake, financing, as you're describing earlier, or policy? What's going on in the energy world in this part of the world?
So yeah, like, uh, I guess like Mongolian energy system volume wise around like maybe like, uh, 80% is like, uh, fossil fuel power.
There has been wind farms that was built, as mentioned, like 155 megawatts of wind farm is connected to the grid.
And I think around maybe 100 megawatts, slightly maybe more, solar is connected to grid.
So that's good, it's at 20%, but then to connect more, like Mongolia needed more power, more stable power source, that can be like a coal, gas, or maybe nuclear power plant, or build large enough batteries.
But then like a building large enough battery itself, maybe not as commercially as viable compared to building like a coal-fired power plant.
But building coal-fired power plant itself is challenging from getting like a funding because like international banks stop financing them.
Also, the main issue was also that the project developed was in regulators at the time.
Maybe it had lost the window to get funding for coal-fired power plant because CHP-5 was, I think, coal-fired power plant number five was...
And it was very helpful that you described sort of your experience with PF in Mongolia.
And you also mentioned the challenges that Mongolia was facing in the energy industry for the past decade or so.
So can you give the listeners the shape of Mongolia's power systems today? dynamic over the past 10 years.
So from capacity fuel mix to import dependence and why the geography makes it hard.
And if there are any sort of projects that you worked on that helped to address those challenges over the past 10 years, and it's changing a lot, especially with large scale mining and infrastructure projects, as you mentioned earlier.
A decade on, why has solar been built? Is the binding constraint resource grid, offtake, financing, as you're describing earlier, or policy? What's going on in the energy world in this part of the world?
So yeah, like, uh, I guess like Mongolian energy system volume wise around like maybe like, uh, 80% is like, uh, fossil fuel power.
There has been wind farms that was built, as mentioned, like 155 megawatts of wind farm is connected to the grid.
And I think around maybe 100 megawatts, slightly maybe more, solar is connected to grid.
So that's good, it's at 20%, but then to connect more, like Mongolia needed more power, more stable power source, that can be like a coal, gas, or maybe nuclear power plant, or build large enough batteries.
But then like a building large enough battery itself, maybe not as commercially as viable compared to building like a coal-fired power plant.
But building coal-fired power plant itself is challenging from getting like a funding because like international banks stop financing them.
Also, the main issue was also that the project developed was in regulators at the time.
Maybe it had lost the window to get funding for coal-fired power plant because CHP-5 was, I think, coal-fired power plant number five was...
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