Afghanistan is witnessing an exacerbated electricity crisis, as the country relies heavily on importing energy from neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. With the limited local production, the country suffers from repeated interruptions that affect various vital sectors, including health, industry, and general infrastructure.
The crisis exacerbated the Taliban’s control of power in August 2021, as the Afghan government faced difficulties in paying electricity dues due to international sanctions and freezing Afghan assets, which led to the reduction of energy supplies and the repetition of interruptions in many regions.
Economic and social repercussions
The electricity crisis in Afghanistan has caused a wide suffering that extended to various aspects of life, as repeated interruptions led to great damage to public services.
Hospitals, which depend on electricity to operate medical equipment, have difficulty providing the necessary health care, threatening patients ’lives. The education sector is also severely affected, as schools and universities face great challenges in light of the lack of electricity, which leads to a decline in the quality of education.
As for economic activities, the instability of electricity supplies led to a significant decline in industrial production, as factories and companies were disrupted, which caused the loss of many job opportunities and high unemployment rates. The increasing dependence on private generators led to an increase in operating costs, which threw an additional burden on industrialists and business owners.
On the other hand, the costs of living increased significantly, as the population depends on costly alternatives such as electric generators, which require fuel at high prices, and then they are not available to everyone. Also, commercial activities are facing daily difficulties, as refrigeration and lighting systems stop in stores, which leads to significant financial losses.
With regard to daily life, citizens are forced to deal with power outages for long hours, which hinders the running of their daily affairs. This has also led to problems in providing water, as pumping systems depend on electricity, which increases health and living challenges.
Causes of the crisis
Afghanistan has a complex electricity crisis as a result of several political, economic and technical factors. Among the most prominent:
- The great dependence on the import of electricity from neighboring countries, as the country imports approximately 78% of its energy needs, which makes it vulnerable to any political or economic fluctuations that affect energy supplies.
- International sanctions imposed on the current government caused great difficulties to transfer money to electricity -supplied countries, which resulted in delaying payment of dues and sometimes supplies.
- With the freezing of Afghan assets abroad, the government has become unable to finance infrastructure projects or the development of the energy sector.
Production of local energy and technical limitations
According to the Afghan Electricity Company (Barshna), Afghanistan currently has an electrical generation capacity of 1500 megawatts, of which more than 700 megawatts are imported from other countries, especially Uzbekistan, while more than 500 megawatts are produced locally via electrical stations such as Nglu, Mahbir, Suropi, Kajki, Salma, and Druna.
According to a spokesman for Barshna, the wisdom of God Mandi, the current local production is only 565 megawatts, while the country needs between 1400 and 1450 megawatts, which creates a large gap in meeting the demand for electricity.
In 2009, the United States established a 105 -megawatled calorie power plant, at a cost of $ 340 million, but this station is rarely operated due to the high fuel costs.
Also, hydroelectric power stations face seasonal challenges, as their production decreases sharply during the summer months due to the dryness of rivers, such as the Locker and the Kabul River, which leads to the stopping of the work of some stations such as Maaber.
Although Afghanistan possesses large natural and water resources, the weak investments and lack of attention to the development of energy infrastructure makes the country depend mainly on imported electricity, which increases the fragility of the electrical sector in front of political and economic crises.
New solution attempts and investments
The Afghan government is trying to reach new agreements with energy supplies to ensure the continuation of supplies, as the electricity import agreement was extended from Uzbekistan for the year 2024. During an official visit to Uzbekistan, former President of the Afghan Electricity Company, Mohamed Hanif Hamza, signed a new agreement with the Uzbek Electricity Minister, which included attempts to reduce electrical tariff and facilitate the issuance of visas for technical experts working in the Afghan electricity sector.
The Afghan government is also conducting negotiations with Iran and Turkmenistan to increase electricity exports to the country, while some foreign companies, especially Chinese, began to express their interest in investing in renewable energy projects in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan seeks to strengthen its electrical supplies through major projects, the most prominent of which is the 500 km electricity transmission project from Turkmenistan, which is expected to provide a thousand megawatts of electricity for cable and 12 other states.
The head of the “Barshna” company, Abdel -Bari Omar, announced that the project is going according to the specified timetable, as 600 electric towers were installed between Shabran and Dishtat Tashghan, and the work is continuing to extend the transportation lines. He stressed that this project will contribute to ending the electricity crisis that citizens and industrialists suffer from, stressing the need for companies executing the required standards and quality.
In the state of Herat, west of Afghanistan, the decrease in electricity imported from Iran disrupted industrial activity, as the production capacity in the industrial city decreased by 80%.
The head of the Chamber of Industry and Mining in the state of Herat, Hamidullah Khadem, said that the power outage led to heavy losses in the factories, while Abdul Quddam Azimi, a factory owner, confirmed that many workers were demobilized due to the inability to operate machines.
According to the Electricity Department of Herat, Iran has reduced electricity exports to the state, as supplies decreased from 110 megawatts to only 20 megawatts.
The Chamber of Industry and Mining in the state of Herat also confirmed that more than 800 factories have stopped working due to the crisis, which caused the loss of about 50 thousand workers their jobs.
Daily life is at the mercy of electrical interruptions
In the streets of the Afghan capital, Kabul, where electrical interruptions are repeated for long hours daily, God, Rahimi, one of the residents of the capital, says to Al -Jazeera Net, “The government talks about importing electricity every year, but we have not seen any real improvement. We suffer from power outages for several hours a day, and sometimes we only get electricity for a few hours. This makes life very difficult, especially during the winter season where we depend on electricity for heating.”.
In residential neighborhoods, citizens resort to costly alternatives such as private generators, but these solutions are not available to everyone due to the high fuel prices. “We need electricity to operate refrigerators and cooling devices, but with continuous interruptions, goods spoil and lose our money. Using generators is very expensive, and we hardly make a profit in these conditions,” Nazir Ahmed says to Al Jazeera Net, a small store owner in Kabul..
The electricity crisis in Afghanistan is one of the biggest challenges facing the country, as it reflects the impact of international isolation on the economy and infrastructure. In light of the continued financial sanctions and poor local investments, the available solutions remain limited, which makes the future of the energy sector dependent on the upcoming political and economic changes.
