Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar City Needs Improvement in Infrastructure to Develop
Society
Ulaanbaatar, 2024 March 18 /MONTSAME/. One of sub-sessions of
Ulaanbaatar-Regional Development” forum was the session under the theme
“Infrastructure-Energy and Thermal Supply”.
At the subsession, First Deputy of the Governor of Capital
City for Economy and Infrastructure P. Sainzorig said, “In 2023, electricity
power supply restriction has been made for 2 million consumers. There was a big
loss in the economy and work performance behind it. Therefore, the Ministry of
Energy jointly with private entities should solve this complex problem. It is
time to make a reform on tariff policy in the energy sector. Today, 1 kilowatt of
energy costs 4-5 cents, but 1 kW of electric power is produced for 7-8 cents. Due
to this difference, the possibility of establishing an additional energy source
is narrowed down. The strict tariff policy prevents investment in this sector.
To increase the private sector participation in the energy sector, the
tariff policy should be changed. In this way, power supply and infrastructure in
Ulaanbaatar city can be improved.”
Also, the Deputy Minister of Energy of Mongolia M.
Bayarmagnai said, “We plan to increase electricity import from China by 70-80
MW next winter. In addition, the first phase
of Buuruljuut Power Plant, comprising a
150 MW block, is scheduled to commence operations this October. These enable us
to meet next winter's electricity demand. The current electricity
tariff policy makes it difficult to liberalize the energy market. “
Buuruljuut Power plant project assessment was started in
2011 by Bodi International Company. The 600 MW power plant construction started
in 2022 and will be completed in 4 phases. Currently, construction of the first
phase is 50 percent complete.
More than 13.5 thousand buildings in Ulaanbaatar are
supplied with electricity produced by Thermal Power plant-2, Thermal Power
plant-3, Thermal Power plant-4, and the Amgalan Thermal Power Plant. By 2030,
the capital city's energy consumption is estimated to reach up to 3328 MW, leading
to a shortage of 1848 MW.
As energy consumption increases constantly on average by
7-8 percent every year, 24-67 percent of all pipes for drinking and wastewater,
heat, and waterflood barriers have expired service life, the participants at
the “Ulaanbaatar-Regional development” forum concurred that the capital city
infrastructure immediately needs to be improved for the sake of capital city
development.
