Uzbek Capital Hit by Power Cuts

While power cuts are common in the countryside of Uzbekistan, it is rare for the capital Tashkent to suffer from them. A recent spate of blackouts suggests power stations are not working at full capacity, because the natural gas used to fire them is being diverted for export.

Residents of the city say that since the beginning of the year, homes and offices have been hit by sudden power cuts several times a day, lasting from between 15 minutes to several hours at a time.

While officials have said nothing about the outages, electricity company staff in Tashkent have told unhappy consumers that people are using too much electricity and running up unpaid bills.

Experts doubt this is the case, and say the real reason is likely to be that natural gas production is not keeping pace with demand, so the authorities are prioritising revenue-raising exports and cutting supplies to local power stations.

The state oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz has set out plans to increase exports by one third by 2020, while a government energy strategy dating from 2008 envisages a 25 per cent reduction in the use of gas to generate electricity. Unlike neighbouring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan which have hydroelectric schemes, Uzbekistan relies on gas-fired power stations.

According to Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst based in the United States, the government is focused on increasing export revenues from gas as well as the other key commodity, cotton.

“Export growth can only be achieved by reducing domestic consumption,” he said. “Now we’re seeing the first fruits of that.”

A Tashkent-based economist who asked to remain anonymous confirmed that the power stations were being starved of fuel. “That’s the main area where they are economising [on gas], and the effect is these power cuts,” he added.

Last autumn, NBCentralAsia reported that consumers were short of gas supplies as well. (See Gas Shortages in Energy-Rich Uzbekistan.)

An energy-sector employee in Tashkent said another factor behind winter power cuts was that transmission lines and equipment made in the 1960s and 1970s were now antiquated and could not cope with large fluctuations in temperature.

“The energy ministry has issued internal orders that the power supply should be cut to prevent the entire network collapsing,” he said.

The load on the network increases in winter because people use electric heaters, especially when there is a dip in supplies of the hot water piped in from local power stations to run central heating systems in urban areas.

This article was produced as part of IWPR's News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.

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