Accuracy as Art: the story of Oyuna Dashiyeva, who combined creativity and engineering for the benefit of the power industry

Oyuna Dashieva has been creating masterpieces hidden to the world for 14 years at the Sh. Chokin Kapshagai HPP, where the waters of the Ilie River turn into megawatts of power. Her canvas are test and measurement schemes, and her brushes are high-precision instruments. As a leading engineer in automation and metrology at the Electrotechnical Laboratory, she knows the importance of uniformity of measurements in Kazakhstan. But where the others see dry numbers, Oyuna sees harmony – the very harmony she once sought in her drawings.

As a child, Oyuna spent hours at the easel, graduating from art school with the intention of pursuing a career as a designer. But fate, as if mixing colors on a palette, drew a different path. “Physics and math were always given easily to me”, she recalls. – At the English Olympiads I represented the school, and at Tomskaya CHPP, during my internship, I thought for the first time: power engineering is also creativity. Only there are formulas instead of colors and equipment instead of canvas”.

After graduating from university, she spent two years checking the quality of metal structures at a factory, but her heart was drawn to something more. In 2010, Oyuna came to Kapshagai HPP as an instrumentation and control engineer. “At that time I could not have imagined that this is where my two worlds would come together: my love of precision and my thirst for creation”, she says.

Her career is a story of how perseverance turns a specialist into a master. At first, it was painstaking work with instruments, learning every measurement circuit, every step of the energy transformation. In 2017, after becoming a lead engineer, Oyuna took on the responsibility of high-voltage testing at the plant. “Before, I was responsible only for myself. Now my decisions determine the serviceability of the equipment being tested and the safety of my colleagues”, she says.

From 2024, Oyuna not only supervises the work, but also issues work orders – documents that literally organize the testing process it. “It’s like directing an orchestra”, she smiles. – You have to hear everyone, but remember: the final chord is safety.

Oyuna was very lucky to be part of an era of change: during her years of work at the hydropower plant, they implemented an ASCME system for accurate energy metering and modernized the generator excitation system. “Previously, the analogue instruments and meters required human involvement in calculations, taking readings; metering of water that passed through water pipes was determined by calculation”, she recalls. – Modern electricity and water metering allows information to be transmitted to operational staff in seconds. But technology is not a substitute for the brain: you need to have experience to understand the reason for the malfunction of measuring instruments.

Her team consists of the “doctors” of the power industry. They check the insulation of equipment, as if diagnosing the station’s nervous system, and make sure that all instruments communicate in the same language – the language of precision.

“The most important thing in our job is a cold mind and a warm heart”, she says. – You have to feel the equipment, but make decisions in a balanced way. Oyuna is sure: an engineer should not stand still, must constantly develop himself, and not be afraid of difficult tasks.

Her management principles are simple and wise:

– Trust the team: “You can’t think that you are the only one who can cope. You have to be able to delegate, but be ready to support”.

Oyuna jokingly compares the company to the characters of her favorite cartoon “Inside out”: “If AlES were a person, the departments would be its emotions, and our HPP would be Joy, who makes sure that everything works in harmony. Every day her team brings “a part of their soul” into this organism, whether it is calibrating an amperemeter or installing an electricity meter.

Oyuna Dashiyeva has proven that engineering is not the opposite of art, but an extension of it. “I used to paint landscapes”, she says, looking at the rushing waters of the hydroelectric power station. – Now my paintings are graphics, where the perfect line of tension is more important than any stroke. But the goal is the same – to make the world more beautiful. Only now my art gives people the light.

And while the hydro turbines of Kapshagai after Chokin hydroelectric power station rotate in their rhythm, Oyuna remains the one who is quietly turning precision into art. After all, as in painting, in power engineering every detail is important – from a bold stroke to a flawless formula.