DUSHANBE, December 7, 2009, Asia-Plus — The Uzbek side has not yet made an official proposal on conducting negotiations on resumption of parallel work of power systems of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Nozirjon Yodgori, a spokesman for Barqi Tojik (Tajik electric systems) power holding, told Asia-Plus today, commenting on report released by REGNUM yesterday.
As it had been reported earlier, referring to sources at the Uzbek government, REGNUM-Novosti reported on December 6 that Uzbekistan and Tajikistan may reach an agreement on further continuation of parallel work of their power systems. According to REGNUM, Uzbek electricity supplies to Tajik regions that are yet not connected with the country’s power system have not yet been stopped and Uzbekistan is ready to conduct negotiations with Tajikistan on further continuation of parallel work of the power systems and development of conditions.
In the meantime, Yodgori noted that Uzbekistan that unilaterally stopped parallel work with Tajikistan’ power system on October 30 already and Tajikistan’s electricity-distribution system has been operating independently from the unified Central Asian power grid since that time. He noted that although Uzbekistan stated that it would withdraw from the unified Central Asian power grid on December 1 this year it has not yet pulled out of the unified power grid. “Uzbekistan is continuing parallel work with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and it now does not work only with us,” said the spokesman, “Uzbekistan’s withdrawal from parallel work with Tajik power system has made Turkmen electricity deliveries in Tajikistan autumn-winter period impossible.”
However, reliable source at Barqi Tojik says that Uzbekistan is currently supplying some 1 million kWh of electricity to northern Tajikistan per day at the rate of 3.7 cents per one kWh. “Before that, Uzbekistan had supplied 7-8 million kWh of electricity per day to the Sughd province in exchange for the same amount of electricity supplied by Tajikistan to the Uzbek Surkhandarya region,” the source said. “Now, we purchase electricity from the neighboring country.”
On the new electricity line connecting the south of Tajikistan with the country’s northern region that was launched on November 29, he said that some 7-8 million kWh of electricity was now supplied to the Sughd province via that power grid.
In all, Tajik power plants now generate some 40 million kWh of electricity per day.
