The Taliban administration has announced that its five-year plan for the development of electricity production and transmission has been approved by Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban, following its endorsement by the Economic Commission. According to the office of Abdul Ghani Baradar, the economic deputy to the Taliban Prime Minister, the plan encompasses a range of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution projects.<\/p>\n
Based on the published statement, the plan involves 25 power generation projects utilizing domestic resources such as hydro, solar, wind, and coal energy. It also includes completing 13 unfinished power transmission projects, initiating 23 new line transmission projects, completing 21 half-finished substations, constructing 21 new substations, and implementing 34 power distribution projects.<\/p>\n
Despite the broad announcement of these projects, the Taliban administration has not provided specific details regarding the total cost of the plan, funding sources, the exact projected production capacity, or the timeline for each project\u2019s implementation. The lack of transparency about financial resources and execution mechanisms has raised questions about the feasibility of the plan given the country’s current economic conditions.<\/p>\n
The Taliban have stated that the goal of the plan is to develop the energy sector, boost economic growth, and reduce Afghanistan’s dependency on imported electricity. However, Afghanistan remains heavily reliant on electricity imports from neighboring countries.<\/p>\n
The United Nations Development Programme reported in June that about 80 percent of Afghanistan’s electricity demand is met through imports, with over 90 percent coming from Central Asian countries and the remainder from Iran.<\/p>\n
According to energy sector media in the region, Afghanistan’s domestic electricity generation is estimated at around 250 megawatts, while nearly 800 megawatts are imported from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. Taliban energy officials have said the country\u2019s actual need ranges between 6,000 and 7,000 megawatts and may rise to 10,000 megawatts if industrial activities expand.<\/p>\n
This significant gap between domestic production and consumption needs has left Afghanistan vulnerable to any disruptions in electricity imports and has perpetuated chronic power shortages. In Kabul, electricity access varies depending on the season and transmission line conditions, and residents have frequently complained about prolonged power outages. Last summer, some residents reported experiencing daily blackouts lasting more than eight hours.<\/p>\n
In recent years, the Taliban administration has announced several major energy projects, but many remain in early stages or under construction. The Barq-e-Naw (Breshna) company recently announced signing contracts for 17 power generation projects with a total capacity of 1,820 megawatts, although specific details about the operational start dates of these projects have not been disclosed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Taliban leader approves a five-year electricity development plan aiming to boost Afghanistan’s energy production and reduce reliance on imports amid chronic shortages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-important-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}