Rehabilitation of the Sarband hydropower plant (formerly Golovnaya hydropower plant) commenced in the southern Khatlon province on November 18, according to the Tajik president’s official website. 

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, who was on a working visit to Sarband, attended an official commencement of work on rehabilitation of the Sarband hydroelectric power plant (HPP). 

The construction of the Sarband HPP started in 1956, and the first unit was commissioned in 1962. Its installed generation capacity is 240 megawatts (MW), which makes it the fourth largest hydropower plant in the country.   

It is expected that after rehabilitation the generation capacity of the Sarband HPP will increase to 252 MW.

Recall, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in December 2013 approved a $136 million grant the project aiming at refurbishing electric and mechanical equipment for power generation and transmission at the Sarband HPP.

The Government of Tajikistan was supposed to provide counterpart funding of $34 million and Barqi Tojik (a national integrated power company of Tajikistan) is the executing agency for the project.