Tskhinvali, Moscow Launch Backup Power Line

Moscow and Tskhinvali have launched a new 110 kV backup power line aimed to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply to occupied Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia, Tskhinvali-based Res news agency reported.

The four-kilometer-long backup power line, beginning at the newly-reconstructed Severnyy Portal station in Russia, will be connected to Tskhinvali region’s energy system passing the Caucasus mountains under improved conditions.

Until now, the region received Russian energy through the sole overhead 110 kV line of Severnyy Portal-Java passing high Caucasus mountains, making it vulnerable to frequent wintertime accidents, often leaving the region without electricity for days.

The ceremony of launching the power line was held on November 26 at the Severnyy Portal power station, located some two kilometers away from Russo-Georgian border at 2,000 meters above sea level, at the northern side of the Roki tunnel.

The event was attended by Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Rashid Nurgaliyev, Head of the Office of the Russian President for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries Igor Maslov, and Tskhinvali leader Anatoly Bibilov among others.

Bibilov hailed the project as “strategically important” for the region.

According to Kremlin-backed authorities in Tskhinvali, the new power line construction and the Severnyy Portal station reconstruction was carried out within the frames of Moscow’s Investment program, with the cost amounting to 1.3 billion rubles (USD 17 million).

The agreement on connecting Tskhinvali region to Russian power grids by backup power cable line through the Roki tunnel was signed by Russian Deputy Energy Minister Evgeniy Grabchak and Tshkhinvali’s Moscow envoy Znaur Gassiev on September 2, 2020.

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