Tajikistan restricts electricity supplies to 2-4 hours a day

DUSHANBE. November 25. KAZINFORM Tajikistan has tightened the electricity consumption regime in the republic restricting it to two to four hours a day, an official at the Tajikistani state-run energy monopoly Barki Tojik told Itar-Tass on Wednesday, adding that the limiting measures were imposed only in several regions of the republic and those are temporary steps, Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.

According to the official, the restriction was caused by the necessity to carry out maintenance operations, which should be held before the construction of the dam of the Sangtuda hydropower plant (HPP-2) that is under building on the Vakhsh River with Russia's participation. The operations are scheduled for November 26-28, the official said.

Earlier, the company's top management said that they were not going to impose limit for the use of electricity. At the same time, on November 21 the regional authorities received the Barki Tojik holding' telephone messages about the upcoming restrictions of electricity, the republican media reported.

In October 2010, the government imposed 14-hour limit for the use of electricity in the republic, excluding the capital and the regional centres, in connection with the traditional electricity shortage in the autumn-and-winter season.

The Sangtuda HPP-2 with a generating capacity of 220 megawatts and a 31-metre dam is a joint Tajikistani-Iranian project. The Iranian government holds the control stake in the project. It is expected that the hydropower plant will start generating electricity in 2011, but this cannot resolve the electricity shortage problem in the country.

The authorities of Tajikistan pin great hopes for the construction of the Rogun hydropower facility, which will be equipped with six power units with the total capacity of 3,600 megawatts. It is expected that the Rogun HPP will have the world's tallest dam of 335 metres. At the same time, the construction process at the site had been frozen due to the lack of foreign investments, as well as Tashkent's tough position, which insists to carry out an independent international study.

The authorities of Uzbekistan believe that the Rogun HPP is located in a seismically-dangerous zone and may become a serious ecological threat for the entire Central Asian region.

In addition, Russia, which has already constructed the first stage of the Sangtuda HPP-1, plans to continue its participation in the implementation of other hydropower projects in that Central Asian country, including construction of two or three medium-sized hydropower plants on Tajikistan's inland rivers.

The Sangtuda HPP-1 already reached its designated capacity of 670 Megawatts, Kazinform cites Itar-Tass. See www.itar-tass.com for full version.