"The large-scale transformation of Kazakhstan’s power sector following independence in 1991 was reflected by the country’s move toward liberalizing the market and implementing sector regulation. As an early adopter of a liberalized multimarket model consisting of bilateral, spot, balancing, ancillary, and capacity submarkets Kazakhstan’s power sector was regarded a market reform leader among countries of the former Soviet Union, having achieved a much improved supply and demand balance and service quality.
However, despite the noteworthy headway, sector reforms remain predominantly as unfinished business. The excess generation capacity that was inherited from the former Soviet Union at a time when the “energy-only†? market prices were too low to attract serious investors has masked the need to reflect on the long-term outlook of the country’s power production.
As the investment crunch unfolded in the mid-2000s, a diverging concern almost immediately arose; that is, the capacity addi
