Toronto Zoo wants to run on animal waste

By Toronto Star


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The Toronto Zoo wants to build a $13 million facility that would turn "zoo poo" into electricity.

The call for an on site anaerobic digester – using methane gas from animal waste to produce power – is part of the zoo's new push to become "carbon-neutral."

The question is how to pay for it. At a recent zoo board meeting, members suggested asking the city to foot the bill, or bringing in a private outfit to build and operate it.

The first suggestion seems like a long shot given Toronto Mayor David Miller's recent edict calling for city departments and agencies to flatline their budgets for 2009.

"We have to ask what's right for the zoo," Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker told the board. "If budget committee and council says no, that's their right. We have to put this on the table to let committee and council know just exactly the potential at the zoo."

The zoo has recently adopted a "green mandate'' to draw visitors interested in protecting the Earth.

This theme is what's behind a yet-to-be launched $250 million fundraising campaign, which remains on hold awaiting a report from a consultant on how to proceed.

Zoo board members heard that a digester big enough to produce 4 megawatts could power the zoo plus 15,000 homes in Scarborough.

The technology isn't new. It's used extensively in Germany, for instance. Staff told the board the process doesn't involve incineration, and there's no combustion.

It could be running soon and would reduce the zoo's carbon footprint by 40 per cent, staff said.

The zoo keeps a large pile of animal waste on site, some of which is used as fertilizer. One by-product of a biogas facility could be a higher-grade fertilizer, which De Baeremaeker suggested could be sold.

Councillor Norm Kelly said he liked the sound of the plan but would "curb my enthusiasm" until he saw a business plan.

The board asked staff to prepare a request for proposals to see which businesses might be interested in getting involved.

"It's the wave of the future," De Baeremaeker said, adding it could make the zoo a world leader in minimizing carbon emissions.

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New York Faces Soaring Energy Bills

New York faces soaring energy bills as utilities seek record rate hikes, aging grid infrastructure demands upgrades, and federal renewable policies shift. Consumers struggle with affordability, late payments, and rising costs of delivery and energy supply across the state.

 

Why is New York Facing Soaring Energy Bills?

New York faces soaring energy bills because utilities are raising rates to cover the costs of grid upgrades, inflation, and policy-driven changes in energy supply.

✅ Utilities seek double-digit rate hikes across the state

✅ Aging infrastructure and storm repairs increase delivery costs

✅ Federal policies and gas dependence push energy prices higher

New Yorkers are bracing for another wave of energy bill increases as utilities seek record-high rate hikes and policy changes ripple through the state’s power system. Electric bills in New York are the highest they’ve been in over a decade, and more than a million households are now at least two months behind on payments, a sign of pandemic energy insecurity that continues to strain budgets, owing utilities nearly $2 billion.

Record numbers of households have had their electricity or gas shut off this year — more than 61,000 in May alone — despite pandemic shut-off suspensions that had offered temporary relief, the highest the Public Utility Law Project (PULP) has ever recorded. “This August was the group’s busiest month ever,” said Laurie Wheelock, PULP’s executive director, citing a surge in calls to its hotline. “The top concern on people’s minds: rate hikes.”

Utilities across the state are pushing for significant price increases, citing aging infrastructure, the need for climate adaptation, and higher operating costs, as California regulators face calls for action amid rising bills. “We used to see single-digit rate hikes and now we see double-digit rate hikes,” said Jessica Azulay, executive director of the Alliance for a Green Economy. “That’s a new normal that is unacceptable.”

Several utilities have requested delivery rate increases of 25 percent or more, with some proposals as high as 39 percent. Upstate utilities NYSEG and RG&E are seeking to raise electric and gas bills by about $33 a month, although regulators are unlikely to approve the full amount.

The companies argue the hikes are needed “to pay for rebuilding an aging grid and expanding its capacity to meet residents’ and businesses’ service demands,” including storm repairs. They also claim the plan would create more than 1,000 jobs.

James Denn, a spokesperson for the Public Service Commission (PSC), said much of the cost pressure stems from “inflation, higher interest rates, supply chain disruptions, the global push to upgrade electrical infrastructure, and, most recently, the rising risk and uncertainty from tariffs,” trends reflected in U.S. electricity price data over the past two years.

While some have blamed New York’s clean-energy transition, a PSC report found that state climate policies account for only 5 to 9.5 percent of the average household’s electric bill, or approximately $10 to $12 per month. The bulk of the increases still come from traditional spending on infrastructure, storm resilience, and system expansion.

On the supply side, costs are rising too. President Donald Trump’s recent policies have threatened renewable-energy investment nationwide, even as states’ renewable ambitions carry significant costs, potentially adding to New York’s woes. His July “megabill” phases out a 30 percent federal tax credit for solar and wind unless projects begin construction by mid-2026. Industry experts warn that the changes could make renewables “more expensive to build” and “increase reliance on gas.”

“It just means more expensive power,” said Marguerite Wells of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York.

The state estimates Trump’s policy shifts could cost New York $60 billion in lost renewable investment. With fewer clean-energy projects moving forward, gas — which already supplies roughly half of the state’s electricity — will remain the dominant source, tying energy prices to volatile global markets and the kinds of price drivers seen in California in recent years.

Governor Kathy Hochul has called affordability “our greatest short-term challenge,” while consumer advocates are demanding reforms to reduce utility profits and overhaul “rate design,” and to strengthen protections such as the emergency disconnection moratorium that applies during declared emergencies.

“There is definitely a groundswell of concern,” Wheelock said. “We go to meetings and we’re getting questions about rate design, like, ‘What is the revenue decoupling mechanism?’ Never had that question before.”

 

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Green hydrogen, green energy: inside Brazil's $5.4bn green hydrogen plant

Enegix Base One Green Hydrogen Plant will produce renewable hydrogen via electrolysis in Ceara, Brazil, leveraging 3.4 GW baseload renewables, offshore wind, and hydro to scale clean energy, storage, and export logistics.

 

Key Points

A $5.4bn Ceara, Brazil project to produce 600m kg of green hydrogen annually using 3.4 GW of baseload renewables.

✅ 3.4 GW baseload from hydro and offshore wind pipelines

✅ Targets 600m kg green hydrogen per year via electrolysis

✅ Focus on storage, transport, and export supply chains

 

In March, Enegix Energy announced some of the most ambitious hydrogen plans the world has ever seen. The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the government of the Brazilian state of Ceará to build the world’s largest green hydrogen plant in the state on the country’s north-eastern coast, and the figures are staggering.

The Base One facility will produce more than 600 million kilograms of green hydrogen annually from 3.4GW of baseload renewable energy, and receive $5.4bn in investment to get the project off the ground and producing within four years.

Green hydrogen, hydrogen produced by electrolysis that is powered by renewables, has significant potential as a clean energy source. Already seeing increased usage in the transport sector, the power source boasts the energy efficiency and the environmental viability to be a cornerstone of the world’s energy mix.

Yet practical challenges have often derailed large-scale green hydrogen projects, from the inherent obstacle of requiring separate renewable power facilities to the logistical and technological challenges of storing and transporting hydrogen. Could vast investment, clever planning, and supportive governments and programs like the DOE’s hydrogen hubs initiative help Enegix to deliver on green hydrogen’s oft-touted potential?

Brazilian billions
The Base One project is exceptional not only for its huge scale, but the timing of its construction, with demand for hydrogen set to increase dramatically over the next few decades. Figures from Wood Mackenzie suggest that hydrogen could account for 1.4 billion tonnes of energy demand by 2050, one-tenth of the world’s supply, with green hydrogen set to be the majority of this figure.

Yet considering that, prior to the announcement of the Enegix project, global green hydrogen capacity was just 94MW, advances in offshore green hydrogen and the development of a project of this size and scope could scale up the role of green hydrogen by orders of magnitude.

“We really need to [advance clean energy] without any emissions on a completely clean, carbon neutral and net-zero framework, and so we needed access to a large amount of green energy projects,” explains Wesley Cooke, founder and CEO of Enegix, a goal aligned with analyses that zero-emissions electricity by 2035 is possible, discussing the motivation behind the vast project.

With these ambitious goals in mind, the company needed to find a region with a particular combination of political will and environmental traits to enable such a project to take off.


“When we looked at all of these key things: pipeline for renewables, access to water, cost of renewables, and appetite for renewables, Brazil really stood out to us,” Cooke continues. “The state of Ceará, that we’ve got an MOU with the government in at the moment, ticks all of these boxes.”

Ceará’s own clean energy plans align with Enegix’s, at least in terms of their ambition and desire for short-term development. Last October, the state announced that it plans to add 5GW of new offshore wind capacity in the next five years. With BI Energia alone providing $2.5bn in investment for its 1.2GW Camocim wind facility, there is significant financial muscle behind these lofty ambitions.

“One thing I should add is that Brazil is very blessed when it comes to baseload renewables,” says Cooke. “They have an incredibly high percentage of their country-wide energy that comes from renewable sources and a lot of this is in part due to the vast hydro schemes that they have for hydro dams. Not a lot of countries have that, and specifically when you’re trying to produce hydrogen, having access to vast amounts of renewables [is vital].”

Changing perceptions and tackling challenges
This combination of vast investment and integration with the existing renewable power infrastructure of Ceará could have cultural impacts too. The combination of state support for and private investment in clean energy offsets many of the narratives emerging from Brazil concerning its energy policies and environmental protections, even as debates over clean energy's trade-offs persist in Brazil and beyond, from the infamous Brumadinho disaster to widespread allegations of illegal deforestation and gold mining.

“I can’t speak for the whole of Brazil, but if we look at Ceará specifically, and even from what we’ve seen from a federal government standpoint, they have been talking about a hydrogen roadmap for Brazil for quite some time now,” says Cooke, highlighting the state’s long-standing support for green hydrogen. “I think we came in at the perfect time with a very solid plan for what we wanted to do, [and] we’ve had nothing but great cooperation, and even further than just cooperation, excitement around the MOU.”

This narrative shift could help overcome one of the key challenges facing many hydrogen projects, the idea that its practical difficulties render it fundamentally unsuitable for baseload power generation. By establishing a large-scale green hydrogen facility in a country that has recently struggled to present itself as one that is invested in renewables, the Base One facility could be the ultimate proof that such clean hydrogen projects are viable.

Nevertheless, practical challenges remain, as is the case with any energy project of this scale. Cooke mentions a number of solutions to two of the obstacles facing hydrogen production around the world: renewable energy storage and transportation of the material.

“We were looking at compressed hydrogen via specialised tankers [and] we were looking at liquefied hydrogen, [as] you have to get liquefied hydrogen very cool to around -253°, and you can use 30% to 40% of your total energy that you started with just to get it down to that temperature,” Cooke explains.

“The other aspect is that if you’re transporting this internationally, you really have to think about the supply chain. If you land in a country like Indonesia, that’s wonderful, but how do you get it from Indonesia to the customers that need it? What is the supply chain? What does that look like? Does it exist today?”

The future of green hydrogen
These practical challenges present something of a chicken and egg problem for the future of green hydrogen: considerable up-front investment is required for functions such as storage and transport, but the difficulties of these functions can scare off investors and make such investments uncommon.

Yet with the world’s environmental situation increasingly dire, more dramatic, and indeed risky, moves are needed to alter its energy mix, and Enegix is one company taking responsibility and accepting these risks.

“We need to have the renewables to match the dirty fuel types,” Cooke says. “This [investment] will really come from the decisions that are being made right now by large-scale companies, multi-billion-euro-per-year revenue companies, committing to building out large scale factories in Europe and Asia, to support PEM [hydrolysis].”

This idea of large-scale green hydrogen is also highly ambitious, considering the current state of the energy source. The International Renewable Energy Agency reports that around 95% of hydrogen comes from fossil fuels, so hydrogen has a long ways to go to clean up its own carbon footprint before going on to displace fossil fuel-driven industries.

Yet this displacement is exactly what Enegix is targeting. Cooke notes that the ultimate goal of Enegix is not simply to increase hydrogen production for use in a single industry, such as clean vehicles. Instead, the idea is to develop green hydrogen infrastructure to the point where it can replace coal and oil as a source of baseload power, leapfrogging other renewables to form the bedrock of the world’s future energy mix.

“The problem with [renewable] baseload is that they’re intermittent; the wind’s not always blowing and the sun’s not always shining and batteries are still very expensive, although that is changing. When you put those projects together and look at the levelised cost of energy, this creates a chasm, really, for baseload.

“And for us, this is really where we believe that hydrogen needs to be thought of in more detail and this is what we’re really evangelising about at the moment.”

A more hydrogen-reliant energy mix could also bring social benefits, with Cooke suggesting that the same traits that make hydrogen unwieldy in countries with established energy infrastructures could make hydrogen more practically viable in other parts of the world.

“When you look at emerging markets and developing markets at the moment, the power infrastructure in some cases can be quite messy,” Cooke says. “You’ve got the potential for either paying for the power or extending your transmission grid, but rarely being able to do both of those.

“I think being able to do that last mile piece, utilising liquid organic hydrogen carrier as an energy vector that’s very cost-effective, very scalable, non-toxic, and non-flammable; [you can] get that power where you need it.

“We believe hydrogen has the potential to be very cost-effective at scale, supporting a vision of cheap, abundant electricity over time, but also very modular and usable in many different use cases.”

 

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Parked Electric Cars Earn $1,530 From Europe's Power Grids

Vehicle-to-Grid Revenue helps EV owners earn income via V2G, demand response, and ancillary services by exporting stored energy, supporting grid balancing, smart charging, and renewable integration with two-way charging infrastructure.

 

Key Points

Income EV owners earn by selling battery power to the grid for balancing, response, and flexibility services.

✅ Earn up to about $1,530 annually in Denmark trials

✅ Requires V2G-compatible EVs and two-way smart chargers

✅ Provides ancillary services and supports renewable integration

 

Electric car owners are earning as much as $1,530 a year just by parking their vehicle and feeding excess power back into the grid, effectively selling electricity back to the grid under V2G schemes.

Trials in Denmark carried out by Nissan and Italy’s biggest utility Enel Spa showed how batteries inside electric cars could, using vehicle-to-grid technology, help balance supply and demand at times and provide a new revenue stream for those who own the vehicles.

Technology linking vehicles to the grid marks another challenge for utilities already struggling to integrate wind and solar power into their distribution system. As the use of plug-in cars spreads, grid managers will have to pay closer attention and, with proper management, to when motorists draw from the system and when they can smooth variable flows.

For example, California's grid stability efforts include leveraging EVs as programs expand.

“If you blindingly deploy in the market a massive number of electric cars without any visibility or control over the way they impact the electricity grid, you might create new problems,” said Francisco Carranza, director of energy services at Nissan Europe in an interview with Bloomberg New Energy Finance.


 

While the Tokyo-based automaker has trials with more than 100 cars across Europe, only those in Denmark are able to earn money by feeding power back into the grid. There, fleet operators collected about 1,300 euros ($1,530) a year using the two-way charge points, said Carranza.

Restrictions on accessing the market in the U.K. means the company needs to reach about 150 cars before they can get paid for power sent back to the grid. That could be achieved by the end of this year, he said.

“It’s feasible,” he said. “It’s just a matter of finding the appropriate business model to deploy the business wide-scale.’’

Electric car demand globally is expected to soar, challenging state power grids and putting further pressure on grid operators to find new ways of balancing demand. Power consumption from vehicles will grow to 1,800 terawatt-hours in 2040 from just 6 terawatt-hours now, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

 

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Ontario prepares to extend disconnect moratoriums for residential electricity customers

Ontario Electricity Relief outlines an extended disconnect moratorium, potential time-of-use price changes, and Ontario Energy Board oversight to support residential customers facing COVID-19 hardship and bill payment challenges during the emergency in Ontario.

 

Key Points

Plan to extend disconnect moratorium and weigh time-of-use price relief for residential customers during COVID-19.

✅ Extends winter disconnect ban by 3 months

✅ Considers time-of-use price adjustments

✅ Requires Ontario Energy Board approval

 

The Ontario government is preparing to announce electricity relief for residential electricity users struggling because of the COVID-19 emergency, according to sources.

Sources close to those discussions say a decision has been made to lengthen the existing five-month disconnect moratorium by an additional three months.

Separately, Hydro One's relief fund has offered support to its customers during the pandemic.

News releases about the moratorium extension are currently being drafted and are expected to be released shortly, as the pandemic has reduced electricity usage across Ontario.

Electricity utilities in Ontario are currently prohibited from disconnecting residential customers for non-payment during the winter ban period from November 15 to April 30.

The province is also looking at providing further relief by adjusting time-of-use prices, such as off-peak electricity rates, which are designed to encourage shifting of energy use away from periods of high total consumption to periods of low demand.

For businesses, the province has provided stable electricity pricing to support industrial and commercial operations.

But that would require Ontario Energy Board approval and no decision has been finalized, our sources advise.

 

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Solar power is the red-hot growth area in oil-rich Alberta

Alberta Solar Power is accelerating as renewable energy investment, PPAs, and utility-scale projects expand the grid, with independent power producers and foreign capital outperforming AESO forecasts in oil-and-gas-rich markets across Alberta and Calgary.

 

Key Points

Alberta Solar Power is a fast-growing provincial market, driven by PPAs and private investment, outpacing AESO forecasts.

✅ Utility-scale projects and PPAs expand capacity beyond AESO outlooks

✅ Private and foreign capital drive independent power producers

✅ Costs near $70/MWh challenge >$100/MWh assumptions

 

Solar power is beating expectations in oil and gas rich Alberta, where the renewable energy source is poised to expand dramatically amid a renewable energy surge in the coming years as international power companies invest in the province.

Fresh capital is being deployed in the Alberta’s electricity generation sector for both renewable and natural gas-fired power projects after years of uncertainty caused by changes and reversals in the province’s power market, said Duane Reid-Carlson, president of power consulting firm EDC Associates, who advises renewable power developers on electric projects in the province.

“From the mix of projects that we see in the queue at the (Alberta Electric System Operator) and the projects that have been announced, Alberta, a powerhouse for both green energy and fossil fuels, has no shortage of thermal and renewable projects,” Reid-Carlson said, adding that he sees “a great mix” of independent power companies and foreign firms looking to build renewable projects in Alberta.

Alberta is a unique power market in Canada because its electricity supply is not dominated by a Crown corporation such as BC Hydro, Hydro One or Hydro Quebec. Instead, a mix of private-sector companies and a few municipally owned utilities generate electricity, transmit and distribute that power to households and industries under long-term contracts.

Last week, Perimeter Solar Inc., backed by Danish solar power investor Obton AS, announced Sept. 30 that it had struck a deal to sell renewable energy to Calgary-based pipeline giant TC Energy Corp. with 74.25 megawatts of electricity from a new 130-MW solar power project immediately south of Calgary. Neither company disclosed the costs of the transaction or the project.

“We are very pleased that of all the potential off-takers in the market for energy, we have signed with a company as reputable as TC Energy,” Obton CEO Anders Marcus said in a release announcing the deal, which it called “the largest negotiated energy supply agreement with a North American energy company.”

Perimeter expects to break ground on the project, which will more than double the amount of solar power being produced in the province, by the end of this year.

A report published Monday by the Energy Information Administration, a unit of the U.S. Department of Energy, estimated that renewable energy powered 3 per cent of Canada’s energy consumption in 2018.

Between the Claresholm project and other planned solar installations, utility companies are poised to install far more solar power than the province is currently planning for, even as Alberta faces challenges with solar expansion today.

University of Calgary adjunct professor Blake Shaffer said it was “ironic” that the Claresholm Solar project was announced the exact same day as the Alberta Electric System Operator released a forecast that under-projected the amount of solar in the province’s electric grid.

The power grid operator (AESO) released its forecast on Sept. 30, which predicted that solar power projects would provide just 1 per cent of Alberta’s electricity supply by 2030 at 231 megawatts.

Shaffer said the AESO, which manages and operates the province’s electricity grid, is assuming that on a levelized basis solar power will need a price over $100 per megawatt hour for new investment. However, he said, based on recent solar contracts for government infrastructure projects, the cost is closer to $70 MW/h.

Most forecasting organizations like the International Energy Agency have had to adjust their forecasts for solar power adoption higher in the past, as growth of the renewable energy source has outperformed expectations.

Calgary-based Greengate Power has also proposed a $500-million, 400-MW solar project near Vulcan, a town roughly one-hour by car southeast of Calgary.

“So now we’re getting close to 700 MW (of solar power),” Shaffer said, which is three times the AESO forecast.

 

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Why Is Central Asia Suffering From Severe Electricity Shortages?

Central Asia power shortages strain grids across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, driven by drought-hit hydropower, aging coal and gas plants, rising demand, cryptomining loads, and winter peak consumption risks.

 

Key Points

Regionwide blackouts from drought, aging plants and grids, rising demand, and winter peaks stressing Central Asia.

✅ Drought slashes hydropower in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

✅ Aging coal and gas TPPs and weak grids cause frequent outages

✅ Cryptomining loads and winter heating spike demand and stress supply

 

Central Asians from western Kazakhstan to southern Tajikistan are suffering from power and energy shortages that have caused hardship and emergency situations affecting the lives of millions of people.

On October 14, several units at three power plants in northeastern Kazakhstan were shut down in an emergency that resulted in a loss of more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

It serves as an example of the kind of power failures that plague the region 30 years after the Central Asian countries gained independence and despite hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in energy infrastructure and power grids, and echo risks seen in other advanced markets such as Japan's near-blackouts during recent cold snaps.

Some of the reasons for these problems are clear, but with all the money these countries have allocated to their energy sectors and financial help they have received from international financial institutions, it is curious the situation is already so desperate with winter officially still weeks away.


The Current Problems
Three power plants were affected in the October 14 shutdowns of units: Ekibastuz-1, Ekibastuz-2, and the Aksu power plant.

Ekibastuz-1 is the largest power plant in Kazakhstan, capable of generating some 4,000 MW, roughly 13 percent of Kazakhstan’s total power output.

The Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company (KEGOC) explained the problems resulted partially from malfunctions and repair work, but also from overuse of the system that the government would later say was due to cryptominers, a large number of whom have moved to Kazakhstan recently from China after Beijing banned the mining needed by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, amid its own China's power cuts across several provinces in 2021.

But between November 8 and 9, rolling blackouts were reported in the East Kazakhstan, North Kazakhstan, and Kyzylorda provinces, as well as the area around Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, and Shymkent, its third largest city.

People in Uzbekistan say they, too, are facing blackouts that the Energy Ministry described as “short-term outages,” even as authorities have looked to export electricity to Afghanistan to support regional demand, though it has been clear for several weeks that the country will have problems with natural gas supplies this winter.


Power lines in Uzbekistan
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov continues to say there won't be any power rationing in Kyrgyzstan this winter, but at the end of September the National Energy Holding Company ordered “restrictions on the lighting of secondary streets, advertisements, and facades of shops, cafes, and other nonresidential customers.”

Many parts of Tajikistan are already experiencing intermittent supplies of electricity.

Even in Turkmenistan, a country with the fourth-largest reserves of natural gas in the world, there were reports of problems with electricity and heating in the capital, Ashgabat.


What Is Going On?
The causes of some of these problems are easy to see.

The population of the region has grown significantly, with the population of Central Asia when the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991 being some 50 million and today about 75 million.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are mountainous countries that have long been touted for their hydropower potential and some 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s domestically produced electricity and 98 percent of Tajikistan’s come from hydropower.

But a severe drought that struck Central Asia this year has resulted in less hydropower and, in general, less energy for the region, similar to constraints seen in Europe's reduced hydro and nuclear output this year.

Tajik authorities have not reported how low the water in the country’s key reservoirs is, but Kyrgyzstan has reported the water level in the reservoir at its Toktogul hydropower plant (HPP) is 11.8 billion cubic meters (bcm), the lowest level in years and far less than the 14.7 bcm of water it had in November 2020.

The Toktogul HPP, with an installed capacity of 1,200 MW, provides some 40 percent of the country's domestically produced electricity, but operating the HPP this winter to generate desperately needed energy brings the risk of leaving water levels at the reservoir critically low next spring and summer when the water is also needed for agricultural purposes.

This year’s drought is something Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will have to take into consideration as they plan how to provide power for their growing populations in the future. Hydropower is a desirable option but may be less reliable with the onset of climate change, prompting interest in alternatives such as Ukraine's wind power to diversify generation.

Uzbekistan is also feeling the effects of this year’s drought, and, like the South Caucasus where Georgia's electricity imports have increased, supply shortfalls are testing grids.

According to the International Energy Agency, HPPs account for some 12 percent of Uzbekistan’s generating capacity.

Uzbekistan’s Energy Ministry attributed low water levels at HPPs that have caused a 23 percent decrease in hydropower generation this year.


A reservoir in Kyrgyzstan
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the most populous Central Asian countries, and both depend on thermal power plants (TPP) for generating most of their electricity.

Most of the TPPs in Kazakhstan are coal-fired, while most of the TPPs in Uzbekistan are gas-fired.

Kazakhstan has 68 power plants, 80 percent of which are coal-fired TPPs, and most are in the northern part of the country where the largest deposits of coal are located. Kazakhstan has the world's 10th largest reserves of coal.

About 88 percent of Uzbekistan’s electricity comes from TTPs, most of which use natural gas.

Uzbekistan’s proven reserves are some 800 billion cubic meters, but gas production in Uzbekistan has been decreasing.

In December 2020, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev ordered a halt to the country’s gas exports and instructed that gas to be redirected for domestic use. Mirziyoev has already given similar instructions for this coming winter.


How Did It Come To This?
The biggest problem with the energy infrastructure in Central Asia is that it is generally very old. Nearly all of its power plants date back to the Soviet era -- and some well back into the Soviet period.

The use of power plants and transmission lines that some describe as “obsolete” and a few call “decrepit” has unfortunately been a necessity in Central Asia, even as regional players pursue new interconnections like Iran's plan to transmit electricity to Europe as a power hub.

Reporting on Kazakhstan in September 2016, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said, “70 percent of the power generation infrastructure is in need of rehabilitation.”

The Ekibastuz-1 TPP is relatively new by the power-plant standards of Central Asia. The first unit of the eight units of the TPP was commissioned in 1980.

The first unit at the AKSU TPP was commissioned in 1968, and the first unit of the gas- and fuel-fired TPP in southern Kazakhstan’s Zhambyl Province was commissioned in 1967.

 

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