DUSHANBE, November 24, 2009, Asia-Plus — Uzbekistan will withdraw from the unified Central Asian power grid on December 1, Uzbek Ambassador to Tajikistan Shokasym Shoilsamov announced at a briefing in Dushanbe on November 23.
According to him, Uzbekistan has spent large funds to enhance its power systems and today it is ready to work in a separate regime in its economic interest. “”We have spent more than one billion U.S. dollars for this. We have a national program, under which 3.6 billion U.S. dollars will be spent during the period until 2014 for enhancement of the country’s power grid,” said Ambassador Shoislamov. “This will allow us to meet increasing requirements of our economy in electricity and export surplus electricity to other countries, in particular to Afghanistan as we are currently doing.”
He reminded that Turkmenistan withdrew from the unified Central Asian power grid in 2003 and Kazakhstan was also going to pull out of the grid.
He noted that Central Asia”s power grid was the product of Soviet times, when the countries of the region had been part of the same territory and the region’s power networks had been financed from the common center through the Ministry of Energy of the Soviet Union. But now these power systems are linking independent countries.
It is to be noted that during the post-Soviet period, operation of the Central Asia power grid has been ensured by just giving word of honor and practically no coordination has been left that made the grid so vulnerable that separate participants began siphoning off electricity from the unified Central Asian grid in their own interests out of control that has resulted in the grid malfunctioning, negatively impacting neighboring countries.
He noted that blackout that hit Tajikistan in the morning of November 9 was caused by an accident at the Norak hydroelectric power plant (HPP) that led to automatic shutdown of all Tajik hydropower plants on the Vakhsh River. According to expert estimates, the accident was caused by most blatant violation of technological regimes, Shoislamov said.
Uzbek diplomat noted that over the past two years, Uzbek state-controlled energy company, Uzbekenergo, has worked on ringing the country’s power system and ensuring its regular work. Construction of 500-kV power transmission line from the substation Guzar to the substation Surkhan that will allow supplying electricity to the Surkhandarya region will be completed in late November this year and the power grid is expected to be put into operation on December 1, 2009.
Therefore, Tajik electricity that had previously been supplied to Uzbekistan now may be used for needs of Tajikistan itself.
Shoislamov noted that Uzbekistan would supply electricity to the Tajik northern province of Sughd during autumn-winter winter period this year as well, because “Tajikistan is not yet ready to supply electricity from the south to the north.”
He noted that official Tashkent supported all measures taken by the Government of Tajikistan, because “the country should have electricity in summer and winter.”
“There are only economic issues between our countries and there are no any political contradictions between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. There ought not to try to play up to some forces that are intensively seeking political contradictions in this region – there are no political contradictions, there are economic issues that have been settled and will be settled,” Uzbek ambassador said.
