Emomali Rahmon (middle), president of Tajikistan, presses the power generation button for the No 1 unit during the ceremony.
Emomali Rahmon, president of Tajikistan, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion and acceptance of the technological transformation of the No1 unit at the Golovnaya Hydropower Plant, undertaken by POWERCHINA, on April 25.
During the ceremony, the president and related parties jointly pressed the power generation button of the No 1 unit. The president declared it unnecessary to check the operation of the unit as he said he had complete faith in the quality of POWERCHINA's engineering. He expressed his appreciation for the company's hard work and praised it as a world-class enterprise.
An aerial view of the Golovnaya Hydropower Plant.
The Golovnaya Hydropower Plant was initially built in 1964, with an original installed capacity of 240 MW. Due to its 60-year long operation, the hydropower plant required a technological transformation to meet the needs of local residents in terms of electricity consumption and farmland irrigation.
Since 2016, POWERCHINA has been working to upgrade and transform the hydropower plant. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the company met the needs of the plant's early power generation and raised its generation capacity to 270 MW, which has helped to alleviate the country's electricity shortage.
Additionally, during construction, POWERCHINA employed more than 150 locals, driving local employment and economic development. As a guarantee hydropower plant, it played a major role in supplying residents' electricity needs for heating, especially in the winter of 2022-2023 when the country suffered from severe snow and freezing weather.
An interior view of the hydropower plant.
So far, the renovated and upgraded Golovnaya Hydropower Plant has generated a total of 3.14 billion kWh of electricity, 277 million kWh of which was generated ahead of schedule, bringing in about $9 million in revenue.
