Tajik experts say energy officials need to pay more attention to the country’s dilapidated power supply system.
Recent cold weather in Tajikistan has caused a crisis in power supply and greatly increased the population’s problems. People are complaining about a lack of electricity, and officials say the cause was a sudden increase in demand for electricity from the population itself, which led to an accident on the country’s high-voltage power lines.
At about 11:10 a.m. on March 1, an accident occurred in the country’s power grid and left most of Tajikistan’s population without electricity.
In addition to power outages, heating, drinking water, cell phone service and the Internet also failed.
According to Asia-Plus, only the city of Bokhtar and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region were supplied with electricity from the major cities and centers of the region at the expense of local power plants, while in other regions of the country the electricity was cut off.
Dushanbe residents complain of power cuts
Dushanbe residents say the lack of electricity during the cold season has made their lives more difficult and costs more expensive.
Gulandom, a resident of high-rise buildings in the Sino neighbourhood, complains about the lack of electricity and a sudden breakdown in the heating system, and says her young children have not eaten proper food for the past four days.
“We bring boiling water in thermoses from private houses near our homes, with children we eat only instant noodles “Rollton”. That’s how we eat all day – Rollton, with bread and tea. The money we earn is enough only to buy bread and noodles. It is impossible to live with small children in concrete houses. It’s snowing outside, it’s cold, we have nowhere to go,” says Gulandom.
Mehri, a resident of the capital’s Firdavsi borough, says that “the houses are cold, electricity is cut off every day without any specific schedule.
“We don’t have time to prepare food before the electricity is cut off. We don’t know where to complain. It is impossible to reach the electricity distribution network in Firdavsi; they don’t answer the calls,” said a CABAR.asia interlocutor
According to her, if residents are late in paying their electricity bills by at least a day, they are immediately disconnected.
“But when they cut off electricity without any warning and people are left without electricity on cold days, no one cares,” Mehri said.
In the Firdavsi borough, she said, the electricity goes out every day, the heating system is still not working, there is no water, and it is getting more difficult every year.
Another Dushanbe resident, Rustam Samadov, who lives in the center of the capital, said power outages have become constant in recent years.
“The lights are often cut off even in summer. Some people even say that a limit has been introduced in the capital. But I think the problem is that the whole system needs major repairs,” Samadov said.
After a long silence, officials explained the reason for the power outage
Parviz Kutbiddinov, a representative of the Electric Distribution Networks of Dushanbe, explained the situation in a conversation with the state-run Dushanbe TV channel a few days after the accident. According to the official, the cause of the power outage in the capital and most regions of Tajikistan was an accident on the republic’s main high-voltage power lines.
“Due to the sudden cold weather and heavy snowfall, electricity consumption in the city of Dushanbe has increased many times. Some of our electrical equipment was suddenly under heavy load and, due to the unprecedented increase in electricity use by the population, led to accidents throughout the republic,” Parviz Kutbiddinov said.
Experts have a different opinion on the causes of the accident. In an interview with CABAR.asia, energy expert Kamoliddin Sirodzhiddinov also speculated that the accident could have been caused by excessive use of electricity. But Sirodjiddinov disagrees that the load is related to the population.
Sirojiddinov noted that demand for electricity increases in bad weather, and depending on the situation, other power plants or some additional units should be activated.
“They knew in advance that demand would increase, a lot of electricity would be consumed, additional units of Nurek HPP (hydro-electric powerplant) or Sangtuda-1 HPP should have been launched. The managers should have changed the mode of electricity use of production organizations because of the cold, and since they did not do so, demand increased and the accident occurred,” Sirodzhiddinov added.
This is not Tajikistan’s first case of large-scale accidents; similar incidents occurred in 2016 and in previous years.
Abdullo Ashurov, a Tajik journalist who has been following the issue for years, considers the emergence of accidents and electricity restrictions in Tajikistan to be systemic problems.
According to him, “the lack of specialists, old high-voltage power lines left over from the Soviet era, construction of new high-rise buildings and corruption in the industry lead to such situations.
He added that “with financial support from the Asian Development Bank, new modern meters are being installed, power lines inside buildings are being upgraded, and collection of electricity fees is also being improved.” “But the high-voltage lines are old, they were built during the Soviet era. When the demand increases during the cold season, the lines can no longer bear the load and the system fails,” he added.
Contradicting statements about the water level in the Nurek reservoir
Discussions of electricity restrictions in Tajikistan’s regions began in the media as early as last October. During the cold weather of the last few days, residents of the capital also wrote about the problem on social media.
A resident of Dushanbe’s Chorteppa Jamoat writes that the problem with power cuts has not been resolved for several months.
“They cut off electricity any time they want. We pay taxes and other utilities, along with the city residents, but they give us electricity like in the districts,” the resident complains.
Another user from Rudaki district writes that “in fact, from September 2023 until today in Mirzo Tursunzade Jamoat of Rudaki district, electricity supply will not come to normal in any way.
“There is no electricity, houses are cold, small children are sick, this situation has been going on for 6 months. I don’t know when this issue will be resolved,” said a resident of Rudaki district.
A month ago, Mahmadumar Asozoda, head of Barki Tojik, told a press conference that “the electricity limit depends on weather conditions and the amount of water flowing into the Nurek HPP reservoir, and it is not yet known when the limit will be lifted”.
According to Asozod, one of the reasons for the lack of electricity in Tajikistan is the low water level.
A few days later at a press conference, Fazliddin Shokhiddinov, director of the Nurek HPP, said that “this year, compared to last year, the water level in the reservoir is 3 meters higher.
On February 1, Tajikistan’s Minister of Energy and Water Resources Daler Juma cited another reason for the electricity restrictions: “increased demand for electricity due to the speed of economic development.
Tajikistan sold electricity worth 110 million USD in 2023
In 2023, Tajikistan sold electricity to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan for a total of 110 million US dollars. This was reported by Jamshed Nurmakhmadzoda, head of the Statistics Agency, at a February 14 press conference.
Tajikistan exported more than 2.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity abroad in 2023, 124 million kilowatts more than a year earlier. More than 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours were exported to Afghanistan, 907 million kilowatts to Uzbekistan and 144.6 million kilowatts to Kazakhstan.
In addition to the reasons the authorities put forward every year, such as weather and declining water levels in the Vakhsh River, Tajikistan’s electricity shortage is due to inefficient management, Abdullo Ashurov said.
Electricity production is indeed increasing, he said, but Barki Tojik is more interested in exporting electricity abroad than in selling it to consumers inside the country.
The financial situation of Barki Tojik and its subsidiaries is not good; they owe hundreds of millions of somoni to the budget and suppliers, and this debt is increasing every day.
According to independent researcher Sher Khashimov, the government and international organizations are allocating significant funds to upgrade and improve the country’s energy system.
“But the vast majority of these funds are spent on building new power generating facilities (Roghun) and not enough on updating the distribution and supply systems,” Khashimov said.
“Upgrading power lines is a necessary, but not high-profile enough project and simply does not fit into the simplistic national idea of Tajikistan’s energy independence. Building new power facilities like Roghun attracts more attention and is more in line with the government’s goals and narrative,” Khashimov said.
He said the “few funds that go to upgrade the electricity distribution and supply systems naturally fall victim to mismanagement (inefficient management) and corruption and do not fully reach their intended purpose”.
“As a result, we have an outdated energy system that urgently needs to be updated and improved and is completely unprepared for growing electricity consumption (due to population growth) and climate change,” Khashimov said.
RT’s climate is getting hotter and drier, annual precipitation is falling, and “with that comes a seeming need to prepare the power systems for bad weather.”
“But as the climate changes, the weather also becomes more unpredictable, and when abnormal precipitation occurs, as it did last week in RT, the system is simply unprepared neither for the drop in temperature, nor for the weight of the snow, nor for the spike in electricity consumption,” Khashimov notes.