Sangtuda 1 Hydroelectric Power Plant
Sangtuda 1 Hydroelectric Power Plant is a run-of-river power station on the Vakhsh River in Tajikistan, about 160 kilometers south of Dushanbe, in Danghara District, Khatlon Province. It consists of four turbines and can generate up to 670 megawatts (MW) of electricity, roughly 2.7 billion kilowatt-hours (GWh) per year, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.
The dam is 75 meters high and 517 meters long. It creates a reservoir with a capacity of 258 million cubic meters and a surface area of about 9.75 square kilometers.
Construction began in 1989 but stopped in the early 1990s due to financing problems. Work restarted in 2005, and the four units came online between 2008 and 2009. The plant was officially opened on July 31, 2009. The project cost about US$720 million.
Ownership is primarily Russian, with about three-quarters of the plant held by Russia and the remainder by Tajikistan and other partners. The plant is operated by Sangtudinskaya GES-1, and since 2010, all electricity is sold to Tajikistan’s national grid, Barqi Tojik.
When running at full capacity, Sangtuda 1 provides around 12% of Tajikistan’s electricity. It is seen as a major step toward energy independence for Tajikistan, helping reduce winter electricity shortages. There have been plans to build transmission lines to export power to neighboring countries, although such projects have faced delays.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:05 (CET).