Speaking on the occasion of launching a new $3.9 billion mega-dam, Tajik president Emomali Rahmon noted on November 16 that without construction of ‘Roghun they would not be able to meet the continuously growing demand of population and various sectors of Tajikistan’s economy in electricity and ensure sustainable socio-economic development of the country.
“Thus, the Roghun HPP is the most important driver of future development of Tajikistan and decent life of our people,” Rahmon noted.
According to him, this was the reason, the Government of Tajikistan declared the ‘Roghun’ facility as the life-changing asset and grand project of the century and started its construction by involving experienced local and international companies and specialists.
“With a view to accelerating the facility construction process, in addition to the public budget the noble people of Tajikistan, organizations and industries, entrepreneurs and businesses as well as our compatriots overseas made a valuable input by purchasing the power plant’s shares,” said the president, noting that the demand in electricity has been growing regionally and globally during the recent years and according to prediction of specialists this demand will increase by almost four times by 2030 compared to the early 21st century.
He noted that during 27 years of independence the power consumption by public increased 3,5 times and this indicator made 5.7 billion kWh in 2017. Currently the population’s share reportedly constitutes more than 42% of the local power consumption.
Rahmon said that Tajikistan needs to ensure reliable power supply of the industry with a view to achieving the objectives on industrial development and improving the competitiveness of industrial products.
According to him, the government prioritized the hydropower sector development in its economic policy and defined energy security as one of the national strategic objectives to particularly ensure the country’s sustainable development and steadily improve the population’s living standards.
“We commissioned new assets with the capacity of more than 1300mwt during the 27 years of our independence. In parallel, we proceeded with rehabilitation and renovation of the existing facilities and this process is ongoing dynamically,” said Rahmon. “Construction of hydropower plants on the rivers of Tajikistan will promote balance between the demand in power and water resources, facilitate sustainable water resources management and address the issue of the lack of electricity in the wider region.”
He further noted that one of the peculiarities of the current time being is the global trend of formulation of ‘green economy’ and thereby focusing on generation of environmentally clean power with the use of renewable energy sources. Tajikistan has abundant hydropower resources that is one of the main sources for generation of ‘green power’. “We are eager to use these huge resources not only for our own objectives but also for the benefit of the wider Central and South Asia,” Tajik leader said.
He noted that Tajikistan had developed several projects over the recent years to increase the energy generation and expansion of electricity transmission networks and in cooperation with its international partners it had completed some projects in this area and some other projects are ongoing.
“In this regard, we started the implementation of ‘CASA-1000’ regional electricity transmission line project, which will create a favorable opportunity to increase export of power to near and far neighboring countries and meet the growing demand in power in the regional energy market.”
