At a government meeting, Prime Minister Oljas Bektenov asked the head of the Ministry of Energy about the findings of an inspection into the situation that occurred on August 14 in Almaty, when the city experienced a massive power outage, reports infohub.kz.
Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov reported that, given the electricity shortage in the southern regions of the country, the ministry is completing the commissioning of new generation facilities, including CHP-2 and CHP-3 in Almaty, as well as a new combined-cycle gas turbine unit in the Turkistan region with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. In addition, the power grid is being strengthened: a 500-kilovolt Shu-Zhambyl-Shymkent line to improve the reliability of the southern zone of the power system.
Bektenov noted that this is a strategically important direction and emphasized the need to intensify this work.
Recall that on August 14, a large-scale blackout occurred in Almaty and the Almaty region. According to the press service of the Ministry of Energy, the cause was a power surge in the energy system caused by a sharp change in the flow of electricity from the Central Asian energy system. As a result, emergency automation was triggered, leading to the disconnection of a number of consumers in some regions of Kazakhstan.
Due to the outage of traffic lights in Almaty, traffic jams formed on the roads, and residents themselves went out to regulate traffic. Also, due to a complete loss of external power supply, the metro temporarily suspended operations, and visitors to the Shymbulak resort got stuck in cable car cabins.
Later, KEGOC reported that power outages were observed in eight regions of Kazakhstan.