Chosh settlement (Uzun district, Surkhandarya region) is situated on the height of approximately 2,000 meters. The road to this village is adventure by itself, when exciting precipices are stretching on both sides. 1,100 people are living in the village and there are another 5 similar villages in the neighborhood.
The lifestyle of the settlement residents is quiet; they grow fruits, a vegetables and wheat for themselves. However, it is not quite easy to get meal. Electricity is often cut off in summer and in winter it is practically unavailable because every year snow slides demolish power lines. In order to make the meal, the residents take the wheat to the district centre Uzun, which is situated 100 km away from the village along the difficult mountain road.
So, what can be done for making the life of the Chosh residents easier? The settlement people came to get advice from the doctor of the district hospital Alexander Glazkov. Somehow they found out about the GEF SGP. And they started working. The local doctor has studied carefully how our program works. They understood that if they needed energy, it must be "clean", and greenhouse gas should not be emitted into the atmosphere.
Of all the options analyzed, the most suitable variant was construction of micro hydro station. The river Tupolon flows through the village. It is a mountain river which does not freeze even in winter. Elevation changes are also significant. The only thing remaining is to construct the system where the river water will fall down on the whirling wheel and generate electricity. Such technology was also found. It only has to write the project, submit to us, and begin to implement it after approval.
This is what they did.
Now the water falling from the height of 3,5 meters, will generate electricity through a hydro generator in the amount of 12-15 kW*h That's enough to let the villagers grind wheat to flour by themselves. Now the Chosh villagers do not need to travel to the Uzun district center for grinding wheat because now they will have their own mill. And everyone will always have bread! Now every resident can come to grind wheat. Everyone will pay small fee to the miller. The miller will oversee the work and maintenance of the mill for this fee. The residents of other 5 nearby villages can use services of the mill.
In addition, the electricity will be enough for the lighting. But how once can calculate the amount of electricity that everyone will get? Mahalla committee and the residents agreed that electricity consumption of each individual household will be accounted by a separate meter for each family. They also agreed on the rate per kilowatt of energy. Payment will be made to the mahalla committee and money will be spent on the needs of the village. The work and finances will be controlled by the mahalla committee.
Currently, the micro hydro station is already built. We need to see how the mill works in winter. So we’ll see. GEF SGP has purchased all necessary equipment, the people did all the work by themselves. According to preliminary estimates, just the work of micro-hydro station will annually prevent emissions into the atmosphere of more than 32 tones of CO2 equivalent. Leaving along the comfort for the people of this village.
The project team, consisting of two doctors, has prepared a small instruction, which we will widely spread among the inhabitants of mountain villages. If you also can do it, we will be very grateful. Our goal is to increase the number of such stations in mountain areas and not only there.
We hope that the project will serve as a good example for residents of mountain villages in our country show how their living conditions can be improved and their needs for energy can be met without destroying the nature.
download project application
download booklet-instruction on buiding of hydro station
