Rogun Dam

Coordinates: 38 ° 40 ′ 41 ″  N , 69 ° 46 ′ 15 ″  E

Rogun Dam​

Tajikistan

The Rogun Dam in Tajikistan ( Asia ) is to be the highest dam on earth with a height of 335 m .

dam

The Rogun- dam is on the river Vakhsh stand, a tributary of the Amu Darya , about 100 km north-east of the Tajik capital Dushanbe above the Nurek dam . The dam is a 660 m long stone embankment dam with a structure volume of 75.5 million m³, which has not yet been completed.

The barrier structure would - as mentioned above - be the highest on earth, but cannot compete with the largest dams in other categories such as the storage volume or the structure volume. The highest dams in the world to date with 300 m are the Nurek Dam , completed in 1980 , also in Tajikistan, and Jinping I in China. The third highest is the Xiaowan Dam in China at 292 m , followed by the Grande Dixence in Switzerland at 285 m.

In addition to the political conflict with Uzbekistan , Uzbekistan , who fears about the availability of water for irrigation of its cotton crops, the special problem with the construction of the dam is that, according to the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, up to 7,000 if the dam is built Families (around 42,000 people) would have to be forcibly relocated. By the spring of 2014, around 1,500 households had already been relocated without being provided with an economic basis to replace them. This raises the fear of a great social drama in the realization of the project.

Reservoir

The planned storage space of the Rogun reservoir is 11.600 billion m³, that is 11.6 km³. The reservoir has not yet been dammed. The filling will take five to six years to complete.

Hydroelectric power plant

On November 16, 2018, Tajikistan's President Emomalij Rahmon put the first turbine of a hydropower plant into operation at the dam . If all turbines are in operation, it should deliver a total of 3600 MW of power. This could generate 13.3 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year and supply large areas of Central Asia with electricity. It would be one of the largest hydroelectric plants on earth .

history

Plans and first work on the dam began in 1976, while still in Soviet times. Since then, only incomplete work has been carried out, which is insignificant compared to the overall size of the project.

After the independence of Tajikistan and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, construction work was stopped for lack of money. Only some of the underground structures (caverns, tunnels, valve chambers, etc.) were completed. In May 1993 the two dams were destroyed by a flood . The construction of the actual dam had not yet started. Afterwards, further construction was announced on various occasions.

After the end of the Soviet Union, an agreement was concluded with RusAl (Russki aljumini), which promised to take on the lion's share of the estimated construction costs of 3 billion US dollars in the hope of favorable purchase conditions for hydropower electricity for further aluminum plants on Tajik soil .

Tajikistan has meanwhile terminated this agreement with Russia. Russia expected a stake in the dam company that the Tajik side was unwilling to grant. Accordingly, the Russian side was not prepared to submit any larger documents. In return, the Tajik government accused RusAl of breach of contract.

Tajikistan now plans to invest 79 million USD annually in the construction of the dam. With an estimated total cost of USD 3 billion, the government needs liquid co-investors. Although the planned capacities are so large that after covering the entire Tajik power demand including two aluminum smelters , India, Pakistan and Afghanistan could also be supplied with power, but the overland power lines would first have to be built through extremely challenging terrain. With the previously maintained refusal to grant a potential investor a decisive stake in the dam company, the incentives to support the project are low.

Further construction is controversial in the region. Tajikistan would then be able to control the flow of water in the Amu Darya more intensely, which arouses suspicion in the lower neighboring countries.

According to a feasibility study by Lahmeyer International , the project is to be continued in three steps, in which the dam height is to increase to 225 m, 285 m and 335 m.

In 2011 the World Bank began a consultation process with the neighboring countries and an examination of the project in two areas:

• Techno-Economic Assessment Study (TEAS)
• Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA)

TEAS experts were the French consortium Coyne et Bellier as well as the consulting companies Electroconsult from Italy and IPA from Great Britain. The Swiss branch of Pöyry was the reviewer for ESIA .

On October 29, 2016, President Emomalij Rahmon officially started construction of the dam at the wheel of a bulldozer.

The new cofferdam was completed in June 2017.

See also

• List of power plants in Tajikistan
• List of dams in the world (Tajikistan)
• List of the largest reservoirs on earth
• List of the largest dams on earth

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Human Rights Watch: "We Suffered When We Came Here" - Rights Violations Linked to Resettlements for Tajikistan's Rogun Dam , June 25, 2014 (accessed November 16, 2018)
2. ↑ ORF.at: Tajikistan: Highest dam in the world in operation November 16, 2018
3. ↑ Roland Schmidt: Results of a feasibility study for the further construction of the Rogun wind farm in Tajikistan ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , 14th German Dam Symposium September 2007 
4. ↑ Silvia Steininger, Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research (HIIK): Central Asia, the water conflict
5. ^ World Bank: Assessment Studies for Proposed Rogun Hydropower Project in Tajikistan
6. ↑ AHK German Chamber of Commerce Abroad Central Asia: World Bank gives the green light for the Rogun dam project ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ^ Salini Impregilo: First Rogun dam milestone , June 14, 2017