The Minister of Energy and Water Resources, Usmonali Usmonzoda, is seriously concerned over the increasing cases of accidents in the country’s power supply network.
According to the press center of the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, the minister ordered Barqi Tojik (Tajikistan’s national integrated power company) and other agencies engaged in power generation and supply to take measures to remove such cases opportunely.
Cases of power supply network accidents are increasing in autumn-winter period when the electricity consumption is rising in the country.
Recall, nearly all of Tajikistan was hit by a blackout on October 28, following an unexpected outage at its largest power producer, the Nurek hydroelectric power plant (HPP).
The blackout affected the capital city Dushanbe and all other areas of the country except for the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, which receives electricity from another supplier, Pamir Energy Company (PamirEnergy).
The power went off at about 18:30 local time and came back on three hours later
Power shortages are relatively common in Tajikistan. The October 28 blackout was notable, though, because it nearly led to the shutdown of one of the country’s most important industrial facilities – the smelter operated by the Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO) in Tursunzoda.
The cause of the outage was not immediately clear. Barqi Tojik established a special commission to investigate the incident and to determine the reasons for the blackout.
Nozirjon Yodgori, a spokesman for the utility, told Asia-Plus on October 31 that Barqi Tojik would need at least two weeks to complete the probe.
However, Barqi Tojik has not yet announced the cause of the October 28 electricity blackout.
Meanwhile, the commission has completed the probe and submitted the probe conclusions for consideration to Barqi Tojik.
“Currently, the conclusions are being studied by relevant ministries and agencies and they can be published only after the final coordination,” an official source at Barqi Tojik told Asia-Plus in an interview.
