Tajikistan practically stopped supplying surplus electricity to Afghanistan in October last year.
“Currently, Tajikistan is supplying electricity to Afghan Kunduz province in small volumes in order to keep safety of power transmission lines,” the Minister of Energy and Water Resources Usmonali Usmonzoda told reporters in Dushanbe on January 30.
According to him, if the power transmission lines are not under voltage there will be probability of theft of wires.
“The Afghan authorities asked us to increase electricity supplies but we explained them that we cannot do that,” the minister said.
Usmonzoda noted that Tajikistan last year sold electricity to Afghanistan at the rate of 4 cents (equivalent to little more than 35 dirams) per 1 kWh.
According to data from the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, Tajikistan last year supplied more than 1.3 billion kWh of electricity to the amount of 456 million somoni (equivalent to more than 50 million U.S. dollars) to Afghanistan.
Tajikistan has sufficient summer-time (defined as May 1 to September 30) hydropower surpluses to export to the neighboring countries.
Tajikistan is reportedly able to export up to 5 billion kWh of electricity during summer period.
In 2017, Tajikistan reportedly generated more than 18 billion kWh of electricity that allowed avoiding introduction of power rationing in the country.
