On January 25, three Central Asian countries found themselves in the power collapse in the afternoon. Electricity went out in the most part of Kyrgyzstan, as well as in some districts of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Electricity supply was restored partly or in full only during afternoon.
The authorities of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan differed in their versions of the large-scale blackout and blamed each other of the event.
Uzbekistan said that the blackout was caused by a large-scale accident in power grids of neighbouring Kazakhstan. The ministry of energy of Kazakhstan, in turn, said that it was caused by power systems of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, where the transit of electricity was rapidly increased.
In Kyrgyzstan, the authorities said that the failure took place “not in the territory of the country.” At the press conference in Bishkek, minister of energy Doskul Berkmurzaev refused to comment the causes of the blackout until the investigation, but noted that it happened for the first time.
Because of the blackout in Tashkent, the airport and underground operations were stopped, passengers of the underground had to be rescued by rescuers. Moreover, power cuts took place in Tashkent region, Fergana valley, Syrdarya, Dzhizak, Samarkand, Navoi, Kashkadarya regions.
In Bishkek, traffic lights were turned off, all traffic network, heating and water supply systems operations were disrupted. Banking transactions became unavailable; over 40 people got stuck in lifts. Blackout took place also in Osh, Naryn and some other residential places in Chui and Issyk-Kul regions.
In Almaty, traffic lights stopped working in the rush hour and biggest traffic jams occurred. Residents of Taldykorgan, Shymkent, Taraz, Turkestan region and adjacent areas also reported troubles.
At the Uzbekistan-based ski resort “Amirsoy”, the cable way was stopped because of power cuts. Tourists got stuck above mountains. The emergency ministry sent a rescue team to them. The cableway at the Kyrgyzstan-based ski resort “Chunkurchak” also stopped working. Tourists there also got stuck above the hillside.
It’s still unclear what happened actually. The only thing that is clear is that the outage is related to the single energy ring, which connects the countries since the Soviet period.
The unified energy system of Central Asia was built back in the 80s of last century. It allows avoiding power shortages in any of the countries due to the assistance of neighbouring states. The project contained all five states, but in 2003 Turkmenistan left the ring and decided to provide itself with power autonomously. In 2009, Tajikistan also left the project. In the same year, overloads and power system blackouts took place on the 500 kW North-South Kazakhstan lines. They were caused by the lack of orderly distribution and consumption of energy in the joint system of Central Asia.
In the subsequent years, the countries in the region made a few attempts to recover the system. In 2019, they signed a joint declaration on regional cooperation in power reforms and creation of the single electricity market. Currently, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan use the energy ring to share power.
Do we need the energy ring?
At the press conference in Bishkek, the head of the government of Kyrgyzstan, Akylbek Zhaparov, explained the purport of the joint system. According to him, two-thirds of power of Kyrgyzstan is generated in the south. So, it is closer to deliver power from it to Uzbekistan, whereas Uzbekistan delivers its power to Kazakhstan, and Kazakhstan delivers its power to the northern regions of Kyrgyzstan. Zhaparov emphasised that the purport of the joint system is that the power is generated near to the places of its consumption. This is more convenient and reduces losses.
Minister of Energy of Kyrgyzstan Doskul Bekmurzaev agreed with the head of the cabinet of ministers. According to him, the energy ring gives confidence to the republic and the energy system as a whole.
In his comment of the blackout case to CABAR.asia, analyst Marat Musuraliev did not rule out that such situations are possible in the future. “Given the fact that the countries experiencing power shortages are in one system, such failures will unfortunately take place,” the expert said.
According to Musuraliev, the countries did not leave the ring yet because they did not invest into power generation in their territories since the collapse of the USSR.
“Uzbekistan has built an HPP, Tajikistan has launched two units of Rogun HPP, but the generating reserve left after the Soviet Union was consumed a long time ago,” he said. “The ring is vulnerable now because the power consumption exceeds its generation.”
Moreover, according to specialists, it is quite unprofitable for Kyrgyzstan to leave the ring. According to Ernest Karybekov, expert in water and energy resources of Central Asia, the country will not have enough generating capacities for autonomous work.
“Therefore, we should think not about leaving, but about additional measures of security,” the specialist said. “One of such options will be construction of Kara-Keche heat power plant.”
According to Karybekov, discussions about the project implementation have been going on for many years, but it has not made any progress yet.
“Power shortage is threatening us”
In 2021, Kyrgyzstan faced the large-scale energy crisis because of the lack of water that took place in the Central Asian region. The lack of water affected the water yield in the Toktogul Water Reservoir, the level of stored water was very low for the autumn-winter season.
It made the authorities to look for various ways out of the situation. They said about their plans to build small-scale hydropower plants, and limits on electricity consumption were introduced in autumn.
According to experts, all these problems have not emerged in a day. According to analyst Marat Musuraliev, Kyrgyzstan has not built a single HPP in 30 years of independence.
“It all happened because energy sector was taken as a milking cow, which does not need to be fed,” he said. “And now, when the power shortage is threatening us we started to raise prices and expedite bureaucratic administration in construction of HPPs.”
However, this is not enough, Musuraliev said. Given current tariffs, according to him, new full-scale HPPs will pay off only in 8-10 years. The most cost-effective way is construction of small HPPs.
“But they will never fill all our power shortage,” the analyst said. “They have one advantage, if we start building a small HPP now, it may be launched in a year.”
According to specialists, the Datka-Kemin power transmission line helped to recover power supply in Kyrgyzstan quite rapidly after the blackout. The line was put into operation in 2015. At the official opening ceremony, Almazbek Atambaev, the then leader of the country, said that the opening of the power transmission line in the country would create its own energy ring, which would ensure energy independence of Kyrgyzstan from other countries.
However, the country is still working in the single energy ring with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. But, according to Ernest Karybekov, if it was not for the power transmission line, almost 50 per cent of the population of Kyrgyzstan would be left without electricity for a long time after the blackout.
Analyst Marat Musuraliev agreed with this statement.
“We can judge from our neighbours – Uzbekistan recovered its power supply by 70 per cent on the second day only, whereas we did it almost right away,” Musuraliev said.
However, according to the expert, the Datka-Kemin power transmission line will not help to solve all the problems. The rapid population upsurge and the annual growth of power consumption will always bear heavily on the country’s power supply.
Conspiracy theory
After the large-scale power outage, social media started to suggest that it was done on purpose to convince the people of the need to build the nuclear power plant. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have discussed this topic for the last several years.
On January 20, 2022, the official website of the Russian state-controlled corporation “Rosatom” reported that they signed a memorandum of cooperation in building low-power nuclear plants with the Ministry of Energy of Kyrgyzstan. Later on, the Ministry of Energy of the Kyrgyz Republic reported that those were just plans, while the final decision will be made only after the country-wide discussion.
Various opinions were voiced in this regard on social media. But experts think that Kyrgyzstan needs the nuclear plant. The country needs to expand capacities to secure itself against sudden power cuts and to overcome the crisis.
According to Myrzatai Sultanaliev, senior fellow of the Kyrgyz Research and Development Centre of Energy ‘Energia’, “the country needs additional sources of energy, and Russia’s offer could not have come at a better time for Kyrgyzstan.”
According to Marat Musuraliev, the nuclear plant can provide both thermal power and hot water.
“There should be no fear at all about it,” he said. “After Fukushima or Chernobyl accident, the IAEA toughened the safety requirements, so there is no occasion for fear.”
In turn, Ernest Karybekov, expert in water and energy resources of Central Asia, said that all Soviet power engineers call nuclear power plants the most reliable and safe ones.
“However, we should take into account that Kyrgyzstan is partly placed in the earthquake zone,” Karybekov said. “Besides, we have no specialists who could operate the nuclear plant properly.”
While the question of NPP construction is worked over now, the experts advise that the authorities of the countries that faced the blackout should find out the reasons for blackout, and avoid such situations in future. According to specialists, it can be done only by improving the energy sector in their states.