In March 2024, a delegation of World Financial institution Group administrators concluded their tour of Central Asia, stopping on the partially operable Rogun Hydropower plant. The go to was a fruits of earlier World Financial institution commitments to the undertaking in addition to the nation that confronted main hiccups within the a long time main as much as the primary generator being introduced on-line in 2018. The dam, nonetheless, faces main criticism from environmental and humanitarian teams, in addition to geopolitical considerations. Neighbors like Uzbekistan are anxious that, though Rogun is situated properly inside Tajikistan and away from worldwide borders, diverting water from the watershed may adversely have an effect on the previous’s cotton business.
Regardless of overrunning price points, the Rogun dam undertaking is actually a too-big-to-fail operation in a rustic the place over 90% of its electrical energy comes from hydropower sources.
Tajikistan is a rustic of about ten million folks and is without doubt one of the most mountainous nations on this planet. Minimize by by the formidable Alay and Palmir mountains, the nation consists of two main inhabitants cores. The first core is within the nation’s southwest on a plain the place the capital metropolis Dushanbe sits. That is the place a lot of the nation’s agricultural output originates from. The second core is centered across the metropolis of Khujand within the contentious but fertile Fergana Valley area, which is split between Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. A relic from the Soviet period, by divisively splitting the area between the previous Soviet republics, Moscow sought to make sure that no sole energy may ever dominate the broader area.
The rugged Tajik terrain implies that there aren’t any rail routes linking the 2 core areas. Solely the RB01 freeway between Dushanbe and the town of Histevarz serves as any significant land route. To the east is the extremely mountainous, sparsely populated, and the sometimes restive province of Gorno-Badakhshan.
At current, Tajikistan’s economic system is dominated by agricultural and mineral exports. Remittances from Tajiks overseas make its GDP essentially the most remittance-dependent of any nation on this planet. Development charges in the course of the previous decade or so have nearly all the time been above 6% yearly because the 12 months 2000, except the Nice Recession of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the nation remains to be comparatively poor, managing a GDP per capita of solely $1,356, the identical stage because the years main as much as the dissolution of the USSR. The urbanization fee is low; solely about 27% of the nation’s inhabitants lives in cities. Because the finish of its damaging civil warfare in 1997, the nation has managed to rebound, taking a couple of era to get well.
Many years within the making, the hydroelectric plant close to the town of Rogun is about to have its third and closing generator on-line by the top of 2025. The coronavirus pandemic put a halt to bringing that third generator on-line till concrete began pouring in July of 2022. The Rogun Dam will even be the biggest energy plant within the nation at 3600 MW. In accordance with the IEA, Tajikistan has the potential for as much as 527 terawatt hours of energy, solely 4% of which is at the moment being harnessed. When the ultimate generator comes on-line, the full capability of the nation’s electrical energy system will enhance by greater than 50% in comparison with when the dam was not even partially operational.
Naturally, this has financial penalties for each Tajikistan and its neighbors. Tajikistan wants vitality to gas its rising industrial sector. Elevated extra capability from its hydropower community implies that extra energy may be exported to neighboring nations like Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.
With its hydropower potential, Tajikistan may quickly be a significant vitality producer permitting it to punch above its weight in regional geopolitics. The advantages to Dushanbe on this space outweigh the exorbitant prices of the Rogun dam undertaking.