BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 5. The readiness of Kazakhstan's CHP-3 thermal power plant, which has been under construction for more than 10 years in Kazakhstan's Astana, is 83 percent, the capital’s Department of the Fuel and Energy Complex and Public Utilities said in an official request, Trend reports on November 5 via the Kazakh media.
“The contractor for the construction of CHP-3 is Tsentrkazenergomontazh JSC. Claims are being prepared against the contractor. Totally 255 people are involved in the construction. Work is underway on a hot water boiler house, the 1st-elevation pumping station of the 1st lift, a 110 kV outdoor switch gear, a water treatment plant, electrostatic precipitators, and so on,” the department noted.
The Astana authorities explained the postponement of the launch of CHP-3 for the 2023-2024 heating season to the geopolitical situation in the neighboring countries: disruption in the supply of equipment and materials due to changes in the logistics of supplies and cost in relation to foreign currency.
“Besides, the contractor lags behind the approved work schedule for all CHP-3 facilities,” the department added.
According to the department, the total cost of the project is 122 billion tenge ($270 million), of which 86.1 billion tenge ($190 million) has been disbursed to date. This year, 29.4 billion tenge ($64 million) was allocated for the project implementation, of which nine billion tenge ($20 million) was disbursed. For 2023, 7.2 billion tenge ($16 million) was supported in the state budget.
Earlier, the Mayor of Astana Altai Kulginov stated that the contractor was tasked with launching CHP-3 in January 2023. The design capacity should be 420 GCal per hour. In January, the thermal power plant should produce 200-220 GCal and the rest - by the next heating season.
According to Kulginov, over the past 10 years, the population of the capital has increased from 650,000 to 1.3 million people. By 2030, at the same pace, the population of the capital will be over two million people.