DUSHANBE, February 25, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Tajikistan currently does not receive electricity from neighboring countries and we now use electrical power generated only by our power plants, Nozir Yodgori, a spokesman for Barqi Tojik power holding, told Asia-Plus today.

“Yesterday, the country’s power plants generated totaling more than 24 million kWh of electricity,” Yodgori said, adding that the issue of receiving electricity from neighboring countries was expected to be solved in the near future.

On the current situation on Tajikistan’s largest hydroelectric power station, Norak, he noted that water levels at the reservoir powering the Norak station had fallen to 856.6 meters above sea level and only little more than 1.5 meters remained to the critical level.

“Over the past two days, the rate of inflow of water into the Norak reservoir has been some 160-165 cubic meters per second,” said the spokesman, “We hope that warmer temperatures will cause mountain snow to melt that will increase the rate of water inflow into the reservoir.  To ensure normal operation of the Norak station the water inflow rate should be some 500 cubic meters per second.”

We will recall that the critical situation on the Norak station has emerged because Uzbekistan interrupted Turkmen electricity supplies to Tajikistan in early January this year, blaming the interruption on a malfunction at the Uzbek Qaraqul substation that is used for Turkmen power deliveries to Tajikistan.  The interruption has forced Tajikistan to keep its power plants operational in maximum level and introduce electricity rationing in Dushanbe that resulted in the supply of daily electricity to some areas of the city being reduced to 19 hours.

As it had been reported earlier, speaking at quarterly press conference in Dushanbe in January, some Tajik officials warned that Central Asia could face a water shortage this summer.  They noted that Tajikistan’s water reservoirs were being used to produce additional energy due to severe electricity shortages that could lead to a water deficit in the region.