Current plans, reaching back to 1997, foresee the construction of two new nuclear power plants near the towns of Ülken and Kurchatov.
[6] After Kazakhstan's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the territory was denuclearized by returning all nuclear warheads to the Russian Federation in 1994.
[7] In 1998 the Kazakh government announced its intentions to construct a new power reactor near lake Balkash, which however was not implemented in the following years.
In 2013 Kazakhstan adopted a “Green Economy Concept” to shift its 97% fossil fuel electricity production to at least 50% renewable and nuclear sources until 2050, and reach full carbon neutrality by 2060.
[10] An International Atomic Energy Agency report at the government's request from 2016 declared that “Kazakhstan is well-positioned to continue developing its civilian nuclear program”.
As of 2022 the government was evaluating six potential suppliers: NuScale Power (USA), US-Japanese consortium of GEH, KHNP (Korea), CNNC (China), Rosatom (Russia) and EDF (France).