In the energy sector, the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region GBAO possesses great renewable and inexpensive energy sources and lies in a strategic location that can facilitate interconnections and partnerships, provided that the political instability and its connection to the geopolitical and financial constraints is better understood, Dimitris Simeonidis, an independent energy policy and geopolitical risk analyst, The Hague, Netherlands, wrote exclusively for CABAR.asia.
According to him, the regional electricity grid of GBAO is being connected as a whole to the national grid, after an agreement that has been an initiative of several national and international actors, including Pamir Energy Company (PE) and the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN).
As far as the progress in the electricity sector is concerned, the expert notes that the details about the strategy and its impact on the energy security of GBAO are still not very clear, as substantial investment and efficient allocation of the budget in electricity is needed on the region. In addition, the strategy seems to fail to address the broader electricity security issue that the country faces.
In the energy sector, GBAO reportedly possesses great renewable and inexpensive energy sources and lies in a strategic location that can facilitate interconnections and partnerships, provided that the political instability and its connection to the geopolitical and financial constraints is better understood.
As with every well-connected system, this is the only way that the internal issues are resolved, creating a positive reinforcing loop that will deal with the aforementioned constraints as well.
This winter, Tajikistan reportedly faced one of its worst electricity outages in its history, where the crippling blackouts’ duration was more than ten hours long throughout the country. Facing mounting pressure, the government mobilized the partly state-owned Pamir Energy Company to create a consortium with a series of international actors, including the MFA of Norway, SECO (Switzerland), the World Bank and KfW (Germany) and find a solution. The initial solution was the extension of the transmission line from the area of Vanj-Darvoz by 25 km, so that GBAO will now be in the same grid as the rest of the country, the expert noted.
According to him, Beijing is already implementing a rather ambitious green hydrogen strategy, both nationally and globally. At a national scale, it announced the world’s largest green hydrogen project in Ningxia, with 150MW of electrolysers. Together with other announced similar projects in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, China shows sincere interest in harvesting the renewable energy strengths that the Chinese mainland entails.
Neighboring GBAO is no exception to this rule, with vast solar and wind potential that are currently untapped, the expert says, noting that by assisting in modernizing the grind in the autonomous region, it can take advantage of the excess energy and the local residents can benefit from the relief from rolling blackouts.
GBAO can also serve Chinese investments in another way. Geothermal energy has been the “hidden weapon” of the region for decades as it is being used for small-scale projects, such as the greenhouse projects in the Shugnan district. With the right investment it has huge potential to benefit the society. This, through Chinese investment, can be performed in two ways. The first and most simple one would involve tapping into the actual thermal and electrical energy that can be generated from geothermal one. The second one would be to implement the Chinese innovation strategy in direct air capture (DAC) technologies to be able to “such” air out of the atmosphere, through projects similar to the one in Iceland.
However, there seems to be very little willingness for China to get involved in GBAO without going first through Dushanbe.
Moscow reportedly enjoys very close relations with virtually all Central Asian states and Tajikistan is no exception to this. However, while several countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan engage in trade in many energy and financially-intensive sectors, this is not the case for Dushanbe, which mostly relies in the Russian economy with regards to remittances. This reflects even less on the development of the eastern part of the country, the expert says.
