59 MW Afghan power plant gets green light

A 59 MW Mazar-e-Sharif gas-to-power plant in northern Afghanistan will be implemented by Afghan Power Plant Company, established by Ghazanfar Group, an Afghan conglomerate, in partnership with HA Utilities, the utilities investment and development arm of Hassan Allam Holdings, an Egyptian multinational engineering and construction group.

The greenfield power plant, which will use gas from the Sheberghan gas fields located in the same region, is expected to generate around 400 GWh of electricity annually. Regional utility DABS will buy the power generated from the plant.

Only about 34 percent of Afghanistan’s 37 million people have access to grid electricity and even those connected to the grid suffer from frequent power blackouts, at times lasting up to 15 hours a day. The signing of a new deal aims to address this issue. The project will boost the country’s domestic electricity generation by up to 30 percent, allowing more people access to grid electricity while reducing reliance on imports as well as diesel-generated power.