Kazakhstan's KEGOC to shrink power export to Russia

Kazakhstan electricity grid operator KEGOC has been instructed to decrease its export of power to Russia. The instruction was given at the meeting in Kazakhstan government to discuss the heating season, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the press-service of the State Energy Control Commission of Kazakhstan Ministry of Industry and New Technologies. “To ensure stable operation of Kazakhstan’s power system, KEGOC has been instructed to take steps to decrease its export of power from northern sources of the Common Energy System (CES) of Kazakhstan to Russia, to use the reserve of these stations to cover power deficiency of the CES during maximum loads and in case of emergencies and to ensure distribution of requests of consumers from southern areas for power in line with the approved quota of the capacity of North-South transit to Zhambyl hydro power station,” the message states. The Commission also noted that the actual consumption of power has exceeded the planned one in North-Kazakhstan, Akmola, South-Kazakhstan and Almaty oblasts of Kazakhstan. According to the State Energy Control Commission, this happened because Uzbekistan's power grid continued consumption of power in non-contracted amounts. Tengrinews.kz reported earlier that Kazakhstan was planing to withdraw from the Central Asian Common Energy System because Uzbekistan had been illegally using energy from the grid. Uzbekistan owed around $20 million to Kazakhstan. Multiple trilateral negotiations have been held between power engineers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, but have failed to yield any results.