SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 100 protesters scuffled with police in Yerevan over electricity price rises for businesses. Activists said they believe President Serzh Sargsyan has reneged on his promise to protesters in June to subsidise planned electricity price rises by omitting businesses from the deal.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 28 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan inaugurated a 450km-long electricity line that the government said would secure an independent power supply.
Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev called it a “historic event,” as it would release Kyrgyzstan from depending on neighbouring countries for the transit of its own power.
“Everyone knows that electricity from the Toktogul dam was transmitted through Uzbekistan. We have paid millions of US dollars for that,” President Atambayev said.
The Datka-Kemin power line links the south of the country to the north, avoiding Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
The old Soviet-era power grid forced Kyrgyz-generated power in the south to enter the territory of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before re-entering Kyrgyzstan. This added costs of around $9m, according to the latest estimates, without accounting for the loss of electricity from covering the extra distance.
“Thanks to Datka-Kemin PTL, Kyrgyzstan can annually save around $8-9m,” the Chairman of National Electric Network of Kyrgyzstan Bekbo Mamatbekov said in an interview for 24.kg.
Kyryzstan paid for the power line with a $390 loan from the Import- Export Bank of China. Construction took three years.
Over the past few months, the Kyrgyz government has been forced to increase electricity prices due to a regional economic downturn. The Datka-Kemin power line should reduce utility bills for the population.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) signed a deal with the Kazakh government to host the first internationally-controlled bank of low-enriched uranium, an agreement that will boost Kazakhstan’s global stature. The idea is that countries can ask to tap into the supply for fuel for their power stations and prevent any unilateral nuclear build up.
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(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)
AUG. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s government will use cash generated by the $180m sale of the Vorotan Hydro Cascade hydropower plant earlier this year to subsidise a 16% increase in power prices, media quoted PM Hovik Abrahamian as saying. The announcement appears to be a climbdown as the power price rise had sparked protests.
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(News report from Issue No. 242, published on August 7 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan increased its electricity exports by 9.4% in the first half of 2015, compared to the same period last year, according to the ministry of energy. Afghanistan receives the majority of Tajik electricity exports. Electricity exports are increasingly important to Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
TBILISI, JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian state regulators approved a price increase for electricity, a rise that will irritate consumers and also the power companies who said the rise was not enough to cover the cost of production.
Electricity prices have become a major political issue across Central Asia and the South Caucasus because falling local currencies have forced up the cost of imports needed to fuel power stations.
In Armenia, thousands of people have protested for weeks about a sharp increase in electricity prices.
Perhaps mindful of the political fallout, Georgia’s regulators tried to limit price increases. The price rises appear to vary enormously between 2% and 30% depending on consumers’ overall annual use.
Zurab Gelenidze, CFO of Georgian Industrial Group, said the price rises were not enough. “The sustainability of the entire system will become questionable,” he told media.
Also reacting to the price rises, PM Irakli Garibashvili said the government would give out subsidies to some lower income families.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of people continued to protest in central Yerevan against a potential price rise for electricity, although a Bulletin correspondent at the demonstration said that the numbers and the intensity have dropped off.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Enguri hydropower plant in Georgia sold 400,000 carbon credits to Statkraft, a Norwegian electricity company, media reported. The deal highlights the progress Enguri has made in becoming more professional. It is the largest power plant in Georgia, generating 40% of its electricity.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – YEREVAN — Demonstrators in central Yerevan shifted their rally against an electricity price rise on Monday after police cleared barricades from the central street they had occupied for two weeks.
A Bulletin correspondent said around 1,000 people gathered at Freedom Square in the centre of Yerevan for another protest on Thursday evening. Police watched the protest but the atmosphere was calm.
“We demand one thing. The immediate and complete cancellation of the decision adopted by the State regulatory commission on baseless rise of electricity tariffs,” one of the protesters said.
Thousands of people have been protesting in the evenings in the centre of Yerevan, demanding that the government scrap the plan to raise the price of electricity, the third price rise in two years. The Russian-owned electricity company says the hike is necessary to support the power grid.
A state regulatory commission has already approved the price rise but in an apparent concession to the protesters earlier this month Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan ordered an audit of the electricity company.
And, on Wednesday, an Armenian state watchdog fined the electricity company $126,000 for violating the rights of consumers for demanding residents in new-built housing pay up front for their electricity.
The protests have widespread support even though the numbers have been dwindling.
“I’m very busy and that’s why I can’t take part in the protests,” said Georgi Barseghyan, a Yerevan resident. “So are other members of my family. But we all are with them.”
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – YEREVAN — Several hundred protesters continued to occupy a main street in central Yerevan, demonstrating against an electricity price increase.
The number of demonstrators has fallen and a Bulletin correspondent said there were now no more than about 1,000 people protesting on July 2, a drop from an estimated 10,000 protesters last week.
But the stand-off with riot police is still one of the most widely supported street demonstrations in Armenia for years.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, also warned the West against interfering, a sign of the Kremlin’s concern.
The protesters, who are mainly young, have defied police warnings to quit and the atmosphere has veered from tense to party-like over the past week. Last week police used water cannons and detained over 200 protesters when they tried to clear the square.
In a bid to appease the protesters, Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan suggested inves- tigating further a request by the Russia-owned electricity monopoly to find out just why the price increases are needed.
“I strongly believe that cancelling the tariff increase is extremely dangerous. Hence, until the given company pro- vides its opinion, the govern- ment will incur the entire burden of the tariff increase,” Mr Sargsyan said.
Most activists, though, dismissed Mr Sargsyan’s offer as a distraction.
“Increasing electricity tariffs will increase nearly all prices. Bread, butter, oil,” one activist at the protest said.
The electricity price rise is the third in two years.
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
