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TASHKENT (TCA) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $4.5 million cluster regional technical assistance grant to support an increase in regional power trade in Central Asia Power System (CAPS) and explore potential reconnection of Turkmenistan to CAPS and its further expansion to Afghanistan, ADB’s Country Office in Uzbekistan said on January 7. Continue reading
DUSHANBE (TCA) — 2018 was a historical year for the people of Tajikistan, President Emomali Rahmon said in his address to the country’s Parliament on December 26. Continue reading
DUSHANBE (TCA) — Tajikistan has just launched the first turbine of its giant Roghun hydro power plant, which is announced to help the country finally achieve energy independence. But the expensive project has come at a cost for the state and ordinary Tajik citizens. We are republishing this article on the issue, originally published by Eurasianet: Roghunshoh, a shy and studious nine-year-old in the northern Tajikistan village of Madaniyat, does not quite understand how he came by his name. “I get top marks at school and I want to become a lawyer,” he told Eurasianet, diffidently. His name represents a hope – a gamble, even. The boy was born at the end of 2009, just as the government had resumed in earnest to think about resurrecting a long-dormant project to build the world’s tallest hydroelectric dam. But there was a big problem. Tajikistan was – and remains – disastrously impoverished. So it was that the government issued shares to fund construction of the Roghun dam, which is currently slated to cost around $3.9 billion. Countless people were strong-armed into buying the stock. Some, like Roghunshoh’s grandfather, Abdullo Bobokhonov, who died in 2015, were enthusiastic champions of the initiative. As his widow, 57-year-old Muhabbat Bobokhonova, recalled, the retired state prosecutor was among the first in line to buy shares at a local branch of the Finance Ministry when he heard the news of his grandson’s birth. “He was delighted with the news … and he immediately said that we should call the boy Roghunshoh,” said Bobokhonova. Bobokhonova said relatives and neighbors tried to talk the family out of it, insisting that Roghunshoh was not a nice-sounding name for a child. But after doing some research and determining, through some imaginative etymological detective work, that the root of the word Roghun signified light, they decided to press ahead. “Roghun means light, and shoh means king. Let our child be the king of the light of all Tajikistan,” Bobokhonova said. President Emomali Rahmon officiated over a ceremony marking a major stride in making Roghun a reality on November 16, when the first power-generating turbine out of the six planned for the dam was set into motion. Salini Impregilo, the Milan-based company that was awarded the contract to erect the 335-meter-high dam, said in a statement that the schedule envisions a second turbine producing power by 2019. In his speech at the dam, Rahmon paid tribute to fellow Tajiks who contributed to funding the work. “I urged people to invest in Roghun. To those who made a contribution, I am sincerely grateful. This is a project for future stability of a peaceful and happy Tajikistan. It was thanks to you that we have moved toward energy independence,” he said. In reality, however, many submitted to Rahmon’s exhortations only under pressure of losing their jobs or places at university. “I was studying at university nine years ago, when the Roghun share sale began,” Dushanbe resident Davlater Kholmatov told Eurasianet, on condition his name be changed...
DUSHANBE (TCA) — On November 16, Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon set the first turbine of the Rogun hydroelectric dam in motion at a ceremony attended by thousands to mark the latest milestone in this ambitious $3.9-billion project involving Italian company Salini Impregilo to double the country’s energy production. Rahmon pressed a red button to switch on the plant's first of six planned turbines. President Rahmon watched as the rotor of Unit 6 came to life in the dam’s power house in the presence of government officials and foreign dignitaries, including World Bank Vice President, Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller, Italian Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Manlio Di Stefano and Salini Impregilo Chief Executive Pietro Salini. Unit 6 is the first of six turbines being installed at the dam. With each having a capacity of 600 megawatts (MW), the total installed capacity will eventually be 3,600 MW, equal to three nuclear power plants. This huge capacity will make Rogun the most powerful hydroelectric dam in Central Asia. A second turbine is expected to start producing electricity in 2019 in what is called early generation: putting into operation part of the dam before it is completed, Salini Impregilo said in a press release. The early start of the turbines will allow Tajikistan to cope with internal demand for electricity, especially during the winter months when thousands of families are in need light and heat. It will also be able to raise money from the sale of part of the electricity produced to neighbouring countries. Commissioned by OJSC Rogun Hydropower Project, the state-run company that is coordinating the project, the rockfill dam with a loam core is being built by Salini Impregilo to become the tallest dam in the world at 335 metres. Salini Impregilo is doing the main civil works and related services. With the dam crest at an elevation of 1,300 meters above the sea level, Rogun will also become the world's highest dam, breaking the record held by the Nurek Dam, also in Tajikistan. Located in the upper reaches of the Vakhsh River in the Pamir Mountains, Rogun is about 90 kilometres from Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. Dushanbe hopes the $3.9 billion project built on the Vakhsh river will not only make the country energy self-sufficient, but plans to export some of its output to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reported. The project was launched in the late 1970s but halted after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Construction restarted in late October 2016, less than two months after the announced death of Islam Karimov, the long-term president of neighboring Uzbekistan. Karimov opposed the project, saying the dam would reduce water flows to Uzbekistan's cotton fields. Last year, Tajikistan raised $500 million from an inaugural international bond offering to help finance the construction, which is being carried out by an Italian company, Salini Impregilo. Dushanbe hopes to generate money to finance further construction at the plant after its starts producing energy.
DUSHANBE (TCA) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $35 million grant to reconnect Tajikistan’s electricity system to the Central Asian Power System (CAPS) through interconnection with the Uzbekistan system. This will help expand regional energy trade and improve regional energy efficiency among countries connected to CAPS, ADB’s Country Office in Dushanbe said on November 15. Continue reading
BISHKEK (TCA) — The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will consider Russia’s RusHydro Public JSC claim against Kyrgyzstan’s Government to return $37 million spent for the construction of the Upper Naryn hydropower plants cascade in the Central Asian country. Continue reading
