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Via Hydroworld, a brief article on Kyrgyrstan’s contentious Kambar Ata dams:
Launch of both Kambar-Ata hydropower plants will allow to additionally produce up to 6.3 billion kWh of power annually. This will meet the country’s highest power needs in winter time and will allow export of excess power throughout vegetation period, power engineer Alexey Zyrianov said in his article published on the website of JSC Electric Stations.
“These projects arouse ungrounded concerns of Uzbekistan, which claims that construction of these plants will allegedly disturb the established water use regime in the Syrdarya river basin. However, it is hard to refute the logical conclusion that production of additional power by Kambar-Ata hydropower plants will lessen water discharge from Toktogul dam in winter and consequently will increase water discharge during vegetation period that will fully meet irrigation needs of downstream countries,†Alexey Zyrianov said. Construction of Kambar-Ata hydropower plants should not contradict to the national interests of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, since it will allow to resume functioning of chain of hydropower plants downstream, primarily for irrigation purposes. This key conclusion was justified in the Soviet Union time already at the stage of the technical and economic assessment of Kambar-Ata-1 and 2 hydropower plant projects. Similar conclusions are made in independent assessments at a later time, the expert said. He referred to Economy Minister Temir Sariev, who said in his contribution at the anti-corruption forum on April 16 in Bishkek that Kyrgyzstan produces 15.158 bln kWh of power. If this volume of power is converted into US dollars, Kyrgyzstan produced $6.222 bln in 2012, the Economy Minister said