TIRANA, March 10 – Beginning March 1, energy prices in Albania increased by 70 percent after customers had purchased their first 300 kWh of the month.
The price hike was approved last month by the Energy Regulatory Agency (ERE) in an attempt to improve the financial situation of Albania’s only supplier of energy.
The price of energy will increase for those using more than 300 kWh a month from .06 Euros per kWh to .10 Euros per kWh.
Trade and services businesses will also be affected, but bakeries and the flour industry will be exempt from the hike due to the recent jump in the price of bread.
Albania has suffered a series of crises during the past two years with many daily power cuts. The main cause of the problems included droughts which effected the country’s hydroelectric plants and serious management problems within the state utility company.
Albanian Electro-Energy Corporation, or KESH, head Gjergji Bojaxhiu said, however, that this new price increase will still be insufficient to resolve KESH’s financial crises and it is unable to guarantee consumers an energy supply free from interruptions. KESH has also launched an international tender for the privatization of its distribution department.
Some 2007 statistics
In 2007, the total sources of electric power decreased by 13.4 percent compared to 2006, according to Institute of Statistics. At the same time, the quantity of electric power generated and imported reached 5,881 GWh.
Domestic production of electric power decreased sharply by 46.9 percent compared to 2006.
The total domestic production of power was 2,947 GWh and represented 50.1 percent of total power used in the country.
Production in hydro plants is the main source of total domestic production, and it accounted for 95.7 percent of the country’s power and 47.9 percent of total power compared with 79.4 percent in the previous year.
The substantial decrease of hydro plant production, by 47.7 percent, caused the main decline of total domestic production.
Also, electric power produced by thermo plants decreased by 21.9 percent compared to 2006.
A sharp decrease in production also effected plants run by concession and private plants, producing only 13.7 percent compared to the previous year. Electric power produced by thermo plants made up 2.5 percent of domestic production and the generation from concession and private plants was 1.9 percent of that figure.
Import of electric power had dramatically increased by 136.2 percent compared to 2006. The imported power was 2,934 GWh, up from 1,242 GWh in 2006.
The quantity imported made up 49.9 percent of the total national power consumed in 2007, up from 18.3 percent in 2006.
Exports of power underwent a sharp decrease of 83.3 percent compared to the previous year. It made up 1.8 percent of the quantity available for use.
Losses in-network fell to 16.0 percent compared to 2006. The quantity of total losses is 2,085 GWh, or 35.5 percent of the quantity available for use. Losses in distribution decreased by 17.1 percent compared to 2006. Consumption by users had a slight increase of 1.9 percent compared to 2006.
