Kazakhstan is not ruling out a revision of the heating season's duration amid climate change. Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov said this at a government briefing, according to infohub.kz.
According to the minister, energy workers always regulate heat supply. "But there are cases when we, so to speak, heat the air. Apartments are hot, people open windows, and instead of heating premises, we heat the atmosphere. The operating regulations of combined heat and power plants are strictly tied to weather conditions, primarily temperature. Depending on the outdoor temperature, heat is supplied, and the coolant returns to the system. If there is warming, we will certainly take this into account in our work," the energy minister said.
He cited the current situation in Astana as an example. "The temperature has changed. It is already almost mid-November. In Astana, we saw the first snowflakes, but there is no snow cover yet, which is usually the case in November. The temperature dropped to -5, although for this time of year we already expected -10 or -15. Now we see how the climate and precipitation are changing. This is also visible in the harvesting campaign. This year, significantly less diesel fuel was allocated for grain drying than last year. Farmers have already harvested the crop, there was no rain, so drying grain in such volumes was not required," Akkenzhenov summarized.