DUSHANBE, July 27, 2016, Asia-Plus – This year, Tajikistan will not supply surplus electricity to Kyrgyzstan in the summer months, Tajik Minister of Energy and Water Resources Usmonali Usmonzoda told reporters in Dushanbe on July 26.
According to him, Tajikistan could not meet Kyrgyzstan’s requirements in electricity for its Batken region. “Kyrgyzstan asked for 2 billion kWh of electricity for June-September this year at the rate of 2.0 cents per kWh,” said the minister. “We could not supply this volume of electricity to Kyrgyzstan because our Sughd province now needs more electricity because its annual requirements in electricity have increased due to development of its industrial sector.”
Usmonzoda further added that Kazakhstan had also applied to Tajikistan for power supplies in the summer months. Tajikistan cannot supply electricity to Kazakhstan because it is cut off from the Central Asian unified power grid.
We will recall that Uzbekistan officially left the Soviet-era regional power grid that united the country with its three Central Asian neighbors in December 2009. Tajikistan does not share a common border with Kazakhstan, and Tashkent’s withdrawal from the regional grid also cut off Tajikistan from Kazakhstan.
“This year, the main consumer of Tajikistan’s electricity is Afghanistan. Over the first six months of this year, Tajikistan has supplied 638.982 million kWh of electricity to the northern provinces of Afghanistan, which is 66.2 million kWh or 11 percent more than in the same period last year,” the minister said, noting that surplus electricity was supplied to Afghanistan only in the summer months.
Tajikistan has sufficient summer-time (defined as May 1 to September 30) hydropower surpluses to export to the neighboring countries.
Over the first six months of this year, Tajikistan has generated 8.6618 billion kWh of electricity, which is 0.1 percent more than in the same period last year.
Tajikistan mainly exports electricity generated by Sangtuda-1 and Sangtuda-2 hydroelectric power plants. In January-June this year, Tajikistan has purchased US$36.9 million worth of 1.4 billion kWh of electricity from the mentioned hydropower plants. 1.88 billion KWh of electricity have been purchased from the Sangtuda-1 HPP and 387.4 million kWh of electricity have been purchased from the Sangtuda-2 HPP.
Last year, Kyrgyzstan purchased 500 million kWh of electricity from Tajikistan at the rate of 2.5 cents per kWh.
Tajikistan had previously supplied surplus electricity to Kyrgyzstan in the summer months (June-September) at the rate of 2.0 cents per kWh. In 2014, Tajikistan supplied 226.7 million kWh of electricity to Kyrgyzstan in the summer months.
The first round of negotiations between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on electricity deliveries to Kyrgyzstan in the summer months was held in April and Tajikistan refused to supply surplus electricity to Kyrgyzstan in the summer months at former prices. Tajikistan was ready to supply electricity to Kyrgyzstan at the rate of 3.5 cents per kWh, while Kyrgyzstan wanted to buy Tajik electricity at the rate of 2.0 cents per kWh. Finally they agreed on the rate of 2.5 cents per kWh.
Meanwhile, Tajikistan supplies electricity to Afghanistan at the rate of 3.2 cents per kWh.
In Tajikistan, current prices of one kilowatt-hour electricity are 12.6 dirams for residential customers and 30.6 dirams for industrial and non-industrial enterprises. The average price of one kWh of electricity in Tajikistan is 2.2 cents.
