Rogun, HPP - when will Tajikistan have its own electricity?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Modern man cannot imagine life without electrical energy. But electricity is an opportunity not only to provide life, but also the development of the state economy. Even in the post-war period, the first thing the Soviet authorities began to restore the country with was the construction and restoration of a hydroelectric power station.

Tajikistan is a state located in Central Asia. Previously, the country was part of the USSR. It does not have its own access to the sea, and the territory is located in the foothills of the Pamirs. The state is rich in minerals, but since 93% of the entire territory is located in the mountains, the extraction of resources is difficult. Infrastructure is underdeveloped, and the country's borders are far from Eurasian traffic flows. But this is not yet the main problem of the republic.

Electrical problems

Despite the fact that about 60% of all water flows in Central Asia are formed in Tajikistan, the country practically plunges into darkness in the literal sense in winter. There are no developed large deposits of hydrocarbon raw materials in the republic, hence the lack of electrical energy. Local authorities impose a limit on energy consumption for the population and enterprises, especially for small businesses.

PoAccording to independent experts, the country's potential stock of hydroelectric resources is currently at the level of 300 TW/h. For example, Turkmenistan has only 20 TW/h.

Protracted construction

HPP (Rogun, Tajikistan) is the largest long-term construction in the world. Work on the construction of the station began in 1976. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, work in Rogun was suspended.

1993 was a bad year for construction. There was a strong flood in this place, the bridge of the dam was washed out. As a result, all the erected buildings at that time were flooded.

In 2004, the second life of the HPP (Rogun) began. But now (as of 2017) there are no fundamental changes, despite the loud assurances of local authorities about the imminent launch of the station.

General information

Rogun HPP is located on the Vakhsh River, in the place of the upper stage of the Vakhshk cascade.

According to the project, the station should be of the dam type, 335 meters high. If ever construction is completed, the hydroelectric power plant will be the highest in the whole world.

Commissioning (except for the dam) will be operational and construction tunnels, station buildings located underground, and a transformer room. The planned capacity is 3600 MW. On average, the plant should generate 17.1 billion kWh.

The dam should form a huge Rogun reservoir. It is also designed to provide irrigation functions, that is, it will allow irrigating about 300,000 more hectares.

Expert opinions

Even Soviet designers argued that the construction of a hydroelectric power station in Rogun would not only solve the problems of providing electricity to the entire country, but also eliminate the shortage of water in the entire Amu Darya basin. And the solution to this problem will allow irrigating about 4.6 hectares of land.

There is evidence that at the end of 1990 the station was almost half ready. The construction was carried out with the support of the Uzbek SSR, which was also interested in the hydroelectric power station, so it had the opportunity to develop an additional 240 thousand hectares of agricultural land.

After the collapse of the USSR, the construction of the Rogun hydroelectric power station began to cause concern on the part of the republics that are located in the lower reaches. An international comprehensive examination of the project was carried out. The World Bank conducted consultations on the terms of reference for the project (September 2008-September 2009). Despite public statements of disagreement with the construction on the part of Uzbekistan, the commission came to the following conclusions:

• further construction and operation of HPPs is possible, but only on the condition that design changes are adopted aimed at mitigating environmental impacts;
• The dam in the Rogun settlement is the best solution that will require the least cost and will provide the country with electricity;
• it will be necessary to resettle a number of settlements located in the lower reaches.

Thus, the Rogun HPP gives more advantages to Tajikistan itself and countries located indownstream than the negative consequences. There are also two other factors to consider. Firstly, the conclusions of the international expertise fully coincided with the opinion of the Soviet designers. Secondly, one should not even look for any political background in the conclusions of experts of those years.

In addition to electricity for the entire population of the country, construction will give impetus to the development of industry in the region. And these are new jobs, an increase in interregional and interstate trade.

According to the latest estimates, the completion of construction will cost the country 2.2 billion US dollars.

What's going on now

Who is building the HPP (Rogun) now? To date, the Italian contractor, Salini Impregilo, is already doing this. The company administration assures that the first unit (with a capacity of 600 megawatts) will be launched in 2018. The second one is promised to be launched in 2019, in total there are six of them under the project. The full launch of the HPP is planned to be completed in 13 years.

In addition, the construction of hydroelectric power plants in 2017 is carried out in a complete information vacuum. Head of State Emomali Rahmon is quite well aware of the progress of the "construction of the century", because earlier it was stated that the first launch would be by the beginning of 2017, but severe floods prevented this.

Conclusion

From the few photos of the HPP (Rogun) it cannot be said that in the near future the country will receive the necessary amount of electricity, but I would like to believe that the president's personal control over the progressconstruction will affect the speedy completion of the "construction of the century".