Electricity Supplies to Be Limited in Kyrgyzstan to Replenish Reservoirs

BISHKEK. April 9 (Interfax) – Kyrgyz hydropower plants will reduce electricity output by four billion kilowatts per hour this spring and summer, which will prompt limited electricity consumption.

“Power cuts will take place in spring and summer,” Kyrgyz Prime Minister Igor Chudinov told a governmental meeting on Wednesday.

This will be done in order to “accumulate water to start the heating season with that amount of water that will allow us to quietly work, so that the situation similar to the one that happened this winter in neighboring Tajikistan does not repeat itself,” the prime minister said.

“Kyrgyzstan needs to take urgent measures to replenish water supplies in the Toktogul reservoir,” Kyrgyz Industry, Energy and Fuel Resources Minister Saparbek Balkibekov told the meeting.

“Otherwise if the current level of producing and consuming electricity is maintained, the water level in the reservoir might fall below the so-called ‘dead level’ by the next April,” the minister said.

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