The critically important for Abkhazia Inguri hydroelectric power station was on the verge of shutdown
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The largest hydroelectric power plant in the Caucasus, Inguri, may soon find itself in a situation where it will generate only a minimal amount of electricity. This was stated by “Kommersant” the general director of HPP Levan Meboniya. According to him, after the water level in the reservoir is likely to drop below 413 meters, “water will no longer enter the tunnel and production will be reduced by five times.” This means, according to Kommersant’s interlocutor, “Abkhazia will be forced to introduce a strict schedule for the supply of electricity if it cannot agree with Moscow on the flow of electricity from Russia.” Both the drought and the growing consumption of electricity in Abkhazia play a role in lowering the water level.
The HPP is of systemic importance for the Georgian energy sector and vital for the population of Abkhazia. “Of the volume of electricity currently being generated, 80% of the electricity is taken by the Abkhazian side, and the remaining 20% by Georgia,” the plant’s general director emphasized. And he immediately hastened to clarify that this was not a violation of “the agreement on the ratio of 40-60%, since in the previous few months Georgia took more electricity than Abkhazia.”
Levan Mebonia was referring to the agreement in the autumn of 1993, when immediately after the bloody war Abkhazian and Georgian power engineers managed to reach an oral “gentleman’s agreement” that is in force to this day: Georgia – 60% of the output of the Inguri hydroelectric power station, and Abkhazia – 40%.
True, the same Mebonia repeatedly said (including Kommersant) that the agreement was often violated – primarily due to the rapid development of mining and the huge number of “crypto farms” in Abkhazia. Entrepreneurial Abkhazian miners, according to ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, “over the past five years have generated about $1 billion from electricity taken from Georgia.” At the same time, almost nothing was paid for electricity in Abkhazia.
If the negative forecast is justified, then Abkhazia will have a hard time. In past years, in similar situations, Russia supplied it with electricity, the entire amount of which Sukhum paid for at the expense of the Russian “investment fund” (designed to finance various investment programs in Abkhazia, as well as the payment of pensions, benefits and salaries to state employees). However, this year the situation is complicated by the fact that, according to a number of Abkhaz sources, the Russian government is already conditional on further financing of investment programs and expenditures of the Abkhaz budget by transferring the entire Abkhaz electric power industry (including power transmission lines, overfall hydroelectric power plants and the control panel of the Inguri power plant itself, located on a controlled Abkhaz authorities of the territory). As for the Enguri dam and the reservoir, they are located on the territory of the Tsalenjikha region of Georgia, but without overfall hydroelectric power plants and a control panel, they are practically useless.
The first and last figure in Georgia who tried to solve the problem (according to him) of the “illegal seizure by the Abkhazians of 60% of electricity belonging to Georgia” was Mikheil Saakashvili: at the end of 2008, that is, just a few weeks after the “five-day war”, Mr. Saakashvili issued with the management of RAO UES of Russia, a communiqué on the transfer of the Russian company to the management of the entire complex of the Ingurskaya HPP. But the Abkhazian authorities refused to join the communiqué, realizing that if Russia manages the HPP, then it will no longer be possible to take from it as much energy as Abkhazia itself needs (where the population pays practically nothing for electricity).
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