Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan will launch CASA-1000 this May

Almaty. January 28. Silkroadnews - In May Dushanbe will welcome the heads of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan to launch the Central Asia-South Asia-1000 (CASA) project, TajikTA reports.
“This May the heads of the four member countries of the regional CASA-1000 project plan to take part in the foundation stone laying ceremony in the construction of power transmission lines of the same name to provide supply of electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last year the countries signed all the necessary agreements, including those ones on the supply of electricity, according to the tariffs,” - said the Minister of Energy and Water Resources of the Republic of Tajikistan Usmonali Usmonzoda.
    According to him, all the sources of funding for the Tajik section of the project are already defined. In particular, $45 million will be provided to Tajikistan by the World Bank, $70 million – by the Islamic Development Bank, $110 million – by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and $70 million – by the European Investment Bank. Besides, the contribution of the Government of Tajikistan into the project will make $15 million.
    At the first phase of the project it is planned to build a 500 kV power transmission line Datca-Khujand, which will connect the energy system of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It is also planned to build a high-voltage transmission lines from Tajikistan through Afghanistan to Peshawar, Pakistan. In addition, along the entire length of the transmission line it is planned to build converter substations.
Pakistan is expected to start importing electricity for this line in 2017 in the amount of 1,000 MW per year. In case Afghanistan will not be able to provide the energy consumption in the quantity of 300 MW per year, it will be consumed by Pakistan. The project implementation shall allow Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to export electricity in the volume of 1300 MW per year to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The goal of the CASA-1000 project is to organize the export of surplus electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan into these two countries during a summer season. Also, the project contributes to the development of electricity trading arrangements and the establishment of a regional electricity market in Central Asia and South Asia (CASAREM).
Project completion is expected in 2020. The total project cost is over $1 billion. The costs of the project shall be distributed among Tajikistan - $314 million, Kyrgyzstan - $209 million, Afghanistan - $354 million, and Pakistan - $209 million.