Two units of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP) generated 1.287 billion kWh of electricity last year, which is 53.2 percent more than in 2019, according to Barqi Tojik (Tajikistan’s national power utility company).
In 2019, the Roghun HPP reportedly generated 840 million kWh of electricity.
Electric power generated by the Roghun hydropower plant last year reportedly accounted for 6.5 percent of a total volume of electricity generated by the country’s power plants in 2020. Last year, Tajikistan’s power plants generated a total of 19.770 billion kWh of electricity.
According to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Government of Tajikistan intends to attract US$500 million of external loans to finance national energy development projects.
Of this amount, US340 million will be used for completion of construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP).
The Tajik authorities reportedly hope to get these funds from Credit Suisse (Switzerland) and Lansesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (Germany).
In all, more than 25.3 billion somonis have reportedly been spent for construction of the Roghun HPP since 2008.
The 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 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.
Tajikistan stemmed the flow of the Vakhsh River for construction of the Roghun HPP mega-dam in late October 2016.
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. Construction of the Roghun hydropower plant is expected to be completed in 2033.
Two of the six turbines have already started producing energy for sale to raise funding to complete it. The first turbine went into service in November 2018 and the second one was introduced into operation in September 2019.
