Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Central Asian countries plan to develop a unified strategy for the development of generating capacities.

"We have the Coordination Dispatch Center, which is located in Tashkent. All regional countries are interconnected by main transmission lines," Sherzod Khodzhayev, Deputy Minister of Energy of Uzbekistan, said at a press-conference.

The Uzbek official considers that there is a need to build additional lines, and that it is necessary to load the existing lines at full capacity.

"According to the policy of Uzbekistan, the main power lines will always remain under the control of state, and the state should make investments in their development," he stressed.

Khodzhayev also added that Uzbekistan plans to build a sufficiently large number of power lines to enhance integration.

He pointed out that the Central Asian countries agreed to discuss before the end of 2019 the possibility of developing a joint strategy for the development of generating capacities in all regional countries.

Khodzhayev informed that the Asian Development Bank will allocate certain grant funds for serious technical and scientific research in this direction.

The deputy minister said that Uzbekistan is actively working with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

"Our main task is to fully integrate Turkmenistan, which expressed such a desire. Now they are calculating the level of interaction they need," Khodzhayev noted.

He also added that Uzbekistan intends to intensify work with Tajik partners.

"Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have lines with a capacity of 220 and 500 kV. But we are now considering the issues of enhancing this connection and are planning to build several more lines to increase capacity," Khojaev concluded.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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