In his annual address to a joint session of both houses of parliament, President Emomali Rahmon today noted that 4 billon somoni (equivalent to some 430 million U.S. dollars) will be spent next year for completion of construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP).
To-date, 24 billion somoni have been spent for construction of the Roghun hydropower plant, the head of state said, noting that 3.9 billion somoni were spent for construction of the Roghun HPP last year.
“This will allow introducing the second unit of the Roghun hydropower plant into operation in proper time,” Rahmon said.
Noting the significance of the Roghun HPP for the country’s power system, the president said that “the Roghun hydropower plant would allow extending lifespan of the Nurek HPP by a century by removing sedimentation.
Over the past decade, Tajikistan’s power generation capacity has increased by 1,520 megawatt and more than 1,300 kilometers of power transmission lines have been constructed in the country, Rahmon added.
The Roghun HPP’s first of six units was officially switched on November 16, 2018. The second unit of the Roghun hydropower plant is expected to be introduced into operation in April next year. The last sixth unit of the plant will be introduced into operation in 2028, when plant’s dam will reach the planned height.
Tajikistan stemmed the flow of the Vakhsh River for construction of the Roghun HPP in late October 2016.
Roghun HPP is an embankment dam in the preliminary stages of construction on the Vakhsh River in southern Tajikistan. It is one of the planned hydroelectric power plants of Vakhsh Cascade.
The Roghun HPP was first proposed in 1959 and a technical scheme was developed by 1965. Construction began in 1976 but the project was frozen after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
An agreement on finishing the construction was signed between Tajikistan and Russia in 1994; however, as the agreement was not implemented, it was denounced by Tajikistan parliament.
In October 2004, Tajikistan signed an agreement with Russia's RusAl aluminum company, according to which RusAl agreed to complete the Roghun facility and rebuild the Tursunzoda aluminum smelter. In August 2007, Tajikistan formally revoked a contract with RusAl, accusing it of failing to fulfill the contract.
In April 2008, Tajikistan founded OJSC NOB Roghun with an authorized capital of 116 million somoni for completing the construction of the Roghun HPP. Current authorized capital of OJSC NBO Roghun reportedly amounts to some 14 billion somoni.
To raise funds to complete construction of the Roghun HPP the government started to sell shares in Roghun to people on January 6, 2010. Tajikistan has reportedly issued 6 billion somoni worth of Roghun shares. The sale of Roghun shares has reportedly earned the government 980 million somoni.
In 2016, construction duties on Roghun were assigned to Italian company Salini Impregilo. It is estimated that the project will cost $3.9 billion to complete.
The project is broken down into four components, with the most expensive one involving the building of a 335-meter-high rockfill dam — the tallest in the world — which will entail costs of around $1.95 billion.
If built as planned, the dam will be the tallest in the world at 335 meters and have a capacity of 3600 MW.
