Albania to increase energy imports

TIRANA, Dec.12 – The Albanian government, considering the current crisis, has reallocated $ 14 million to KESH I order to import electricity. The amount of money has been taken from the unrealized projects and is part of a past surplus. In order to cope with the current crisis, Albania’s power utility KESH will import an additional 278,000 MWh of electricity by the end of January. This is expected to reduce power rationing. The government has allowed KESH to buy electricity worth more than 21 million euro ($27.8 million) from six foreign companies. The six companies are Croatian Montmontaza, Czech Ezpada, Swiss EGL and EFT, Austrian Verbund and Italian AEM Group. Earlier this month, the power utility contracted the imports of a total of 101,000 MWh of electricity from EFT, Greek PPC and Slovenian Istrabenz Gorenje for the three months to end-February. The country, in which outdated power plants are unable to produce enough electricity, plans to import 2.206 million MWh next year. Despite the contracted deliveries for December Albania is facing power cuts of up to 13 hours a day in the cities and up to 20.5 hours a day in the most remote villages. KESH introduced the power rationing last week in an effort to avoid worsening of its energy crisis.