DUSHANBE, March 4, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- According to press service of Russia’s open joint-stock company (OJSC) YeES (Unified energy Systems) Engineering Center, introduction of the last fourth unit of the Russian-built Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power plant (HPP) into operation is scheduled for late March.

In the near future, it is planned to bring the station dam to the design reference mark, bring the reservoir to normal headwater level and assemble the segment water gates, press release issued by the YeES Engineering Center on March 3 said.

In the meantime, as it had been reported earlier, open joint-tock company (OJSC) Sangtuda HPP-1 that has constructed said in February that the opening of a Russian-owned hydropower plant in Tajikistan has been postponed until the plant''s Tajik electricity supplier can repay a debt of 16.5 million somoni.

We will recall that the first three units of the station ere put into operation last year.

The construction of the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant located some 110 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe began in the late 1980s.  By the early 1990s, only 20% of the construction work had been completed, and further construction was suspended due to a civil war that broke out in Tajikistan in the early 1990s.  The talks between Russia and Tajikistan on completing the construction of the Sangtuda-1 HPP began in 2003 and in 2004 the parties signed a government-to-government agreement.

Russia retains a 75 percent share in the power plant, which will generate a projected 2.7 billion kWh of electricity per annum.  The power station will have an estimated capacity of 670 MW.