Tag Archives: electricity

Armenia wants to boost electricity sales to Iran

SEPT. 23 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia wants to increase by four-fold electricity exports to Iran, a senior government official said, highlighting the important regional economic position that the Iranian government will hold once international sanctions are lifted, as expected, later this year or next.

At a policy meeting in Yerevan, Areg Galstyan, the Armenian deputy minister for energy and natural resources said a third electricity transmission line to Iran was being built that would increase exports.

“Now in a year we export 1.8b kilowatt hours of energy to Iran and the capacity can be increased to 6.9b. kWh per year,” he said at a press conference. “We hope that the construction of a third Armenia-Iran high voltage electricity transmission line will be finished in 2018.”

The growing trade and diplomatic relationship between Armenia and Iran has become increasingly important for the government in Yerevan. It is short of regional allies. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh and its ties with Turkey have been broken over allegations of a genocide 100 years ago, meaning that it has turned to Iran as partner.

And with Iran on the brink of being accepted back into the international community after a deal with the United States and others over its nuclear weapons programme, relation – trade, diplomatic and cultural – are set to grow.

Armenia sees itself as a growing regional electricity exporter. As well as increasing exports to Iran it also wants to increase them to Georgia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Kyrgyzstan to establish energy holding

SEPT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will establish a national energy holding next year, Kubanychbek Turdubayev, Kyrgyz minister of energy, said in a statement. The government has said that it hopes that a single energy holding would improve efficiency.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Georgia expects power investment

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia expects investments in its energy sector of $8b over the next few years, media quoted a Reuters interview with Ilia Beroshvili, Georgia’s deputy energy minister. Mr Beroshvili said that most of the investment would be in gas processing plants and hydropower.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

China to build power plant in Georgia

SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese Dongfang Electric plans to build a 150 MW thermal power station in Georgia, Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili said during a trip to Beijing. The cost of the project is estimated at around $200m. China has expanded its investments in the South Caucasus.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Turkmenistan joins global atomic energy agency

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has become the 166th member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global body charged with developing and encouraging the safe use of nuclear power, media reported.

While Turkmenistan’s accession to the IAEA may not have any major policy implications it is another signifier that Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants to bring the country more into the international mainstream.

Turkmenistan normally stays away from joining international organisations.

IAEA members ratified Turkmenistan’s membership at their 59th annual summit in Vienna. also joining this year were the east African country of Djibouti, Guyana in South America and Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean.

Neutrality is enshrined in Turkmenistan’s constitution and not damaging this long-held policy would have been a key consideration for Mr Berdymukhamedov.

He has steadily moved Turkmenistan into the international mainstream, mainly to exploit Turkmenistan’s gas reserves.

It holds the world’s fourth largest gas reserves.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Turkmenistan opens new power plant

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan inaugurated a power plant in the Darvaza district, 250km north of Ashgabat, an indicator of how the country is setting itself up as a power exporter.

Turkish company Calyk Energy built the plant and US-based General Electric provided the four gas turbines for the 500MW power plant.

The official Turkmen media reported on Mr Berdymukhamedov’s visit to the opening of the plant.

It said: “The President stressed that Turkmenistan is constantly investing in electricity power generation, which will allow it to increase the exports to meet the demand of world markets.”

Turkmenistan is developing its electricity generation capacity. Power plants are being built in Turkmen- bashi, on the Caspian Sea coast, in the Lebap province, on the border with Uzbekistan, and in Mary, in the south-east of the country.

Turkmenistan is already exporting electricity to Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Armenians protest electricity price rise

SEPT. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Armenia detained 50 people during a protest against electricity price rises for businesses. The government backed down after a series of protests in July and said it would subsidise a 17% price rise for residential property but that businesses would have to pay it.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Georgia approves Tbilisi electricity price rise

SEPT. 3 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Following earlier electricity price rises in Georgia’s regions, the state regulators approved a similar price increase in the capital.

For the Georgian Dream, the ruling coalition, the price rise means they have barely been able to fulfil one of their promises from the 2012 parliamentary election – to cut the price of electricity and to keep it low.

But, as Akaki Tsomaia, economics professor at the University of Georgia explained, the plunging value of the lari had forced the regulators to agree to the price rise.

“Georgia is experiencing a 45% depreciation of its currency against the US dollar. Electricity and gas providers in Georgia have no other way than to increase the price of these services. Otherwise we will definitely have a major electricity shortage,” he told the Bulletin.

Still, this assessment, which is widely shared, didn’t stop the opposition UNM party blaming the coalition.

“The absence of professionalism led us to this point,” UNM’s deputy chairperson Nika Melia told TV broadcaster Rustavi-2.

Electricity prices have triggered protests in the region, most notably in Armenia where thousands protested earlier this year and forced the government to waive price rises.

In Georgia which is known for its street level politics, however, the population seems to have accepted the rise more quietly although some people did expect protests shortly.

Vladimir, an IT specialist walking along Tbilisi’s central promenade said: “People will probably start next month once they get bills.”

Irakli, 37, who was waiting at a bus stop, agreed but he said that politics, was the key driver of social unrest.

“We’ve taken to the streets so much in the recent two decades, but for other reasons,” he said. “But it all accumulates and only needs one non- social spark to explode.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Power station extends in Azerbaijan

SEPT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Trend news agency quoted a source in the Azerbaijani energy market as saying that the long-delayed extension to the Shimal power plant in Baku will finally be commissioned this year. The extension, which will double the capacity of the power station, was supposed to have been commission last year.

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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Salini Impregilo wins $575m Georgia hydropower project

AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Korean Water Resource Corporation (K-Water) awarded Italian engineering group Salini Impregilo a contract worth $575m to build the Nenskra hydroelectric power plant (HPP) in the Svaneti region of northwest Georgia.

K-Water, in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and the Korean Exim Bank, are developing the 280MW project which will have an overall cost of around $1b.

Salini Impregilo has already worked in Georgia on various projects, including the construction of a new motorway.

“The work will have to be completed in 62 months from the signing of the contract,” Salini Impregilo said in a statement.

“The Project will be composed of a main dam, a weir on the Nakra river, a transfer tunnel, a headrace tunnel to the powerhouse and the actual open-air powerhouse with four vertical-axis Pelton turbines.”

The Nenskra HPP project has been talked of for a few years. The Chinese Sinohydro had been selected to develop a 210MW project in 2012, only to withdraw later. Both the cost and the capacity of the HPP have been increased since 2012.

Irakli Kovzanadze, CEO of Partnership Fund, which controls stakes in major Georgian infrastructure projects for the state, underlined the importance of the project for Georgia.

“This hydropower plant will be the largest one in Georgia since the country’s independence,” Georgian media quoted him as saying.

Georgia produces three-quarters of its electricity from hydroelectric plants, although it still imports more than it produces.

One of the key strategic aims of the Nenskra HPP is to help Georgia reduce its energy dependence on Russia, which supplies it with most of its gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)