TURKMENISTAN - The Power Sector.

With over 4 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, 99% of which is thermal, Turkmenistan has sufficient generating potential to power its own cities, unlike much of Central Asia. In the first half of 2006, Turkmenistan's power generating stations produced 6.739,1 bn kilowatt-hours (kWh), up 8% year-on-year.

In 2000, Turkmenistan's power sector generated 9.3 bn kWh, while Turkmen consumers used just 7.7 bn kWh, giving the country 1.6 bn kWh in surplus electricity. But owing to the country's inefficient, Soviet-era power infrastructure which is in need of repair, power line losses wasted a significant portion of the electricity generated in 2000, resulting in exports of only 0.9 bn kWh. But the surplus has since increased as the transmission network has been partly modernised and the sector's efficiency has been improved.

Most of the electricity exports go to Iran, south-western Kazakhstan, north-eastern Afghanistan, Armenia and Turkey. A 270-km power transmission line connecting Turkmenistan to northern Iran was completed in August 2002, allowing Turkmen exports to Iran and Armenia. Armenia's and Iran's electricity grids are connected. Power exports to Iran began in August 2002 at the rate of 50 MW per day. This was under a $650,000 contract signed between Kuvvat Corp., the state-owned Turkmen power ulitity, and its Iranian counterpart Tavanir. The contract covered just over 27 million kWh.

The line's capacity increased in June 2003, linking Balkanabad to Gonbad and allowing for power exports to Iran to reach 562.5m kWh per year. Another 220-kilovolt transmission line to Iran completed in August 2004 feeds 375m kWh per year. The power through this line goes to north-eastern Iran. The new line has cost $7.5m, according to the Turkmen Energy and Industry Ministry, and links two cities by the name of Serakhs - one on the Turkmen side of the border and one in Iran.

These two lines are part of the Turkmenistan-Iran-Turkey energy corridor, introduced in December 2003. It was then announced that Turkey will use the corridor to import 600m kWh per year generated at the Turkmenbashi and Balkanabad power plants in western Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan has had a new, 400-kilovolt power line built from the city of Turkmen town of Mary to Mashhad in Iran. The capacity of this is nearly 2.4 bn kWh a year.

Turkmenistan exports around 200m kWh a year to Afghanistan. This is under an agreement signed on March 7, 2002 by Presidents Niyazov and Hamid Karzai. The power goes through a 102-km line from Imamnazar to Andkhoi-Shibirgan-Mazar-e-Sharif, built by TurkmenEnergo-Gurlushyk in the first half of 2002. In the future Turkmenistan plans to build a large power cable to Kabul and Kandahar, and from there to Pakistan and India (see background in Vol. 59, DT No. 15).

The first foreign-built power plant in Central Asia is a 123 MW gas-fired station near Buzmein, close to Ashgabat which began operations in 2000. This is operated by Kuvvat. It was built by General Electric Enerji Sistemieri of Istanbul, a subsidiary of General Electric Corp. of the US. Its capacity is being raised to 360 MW in a second phase likely to be completed this year.