Total domestic production rose by 47.5 percent in 2010 covering 88.5 percent of the country’s needs for electricity
TIRANA, March 21 – Electricity losses continued remaining high in 2010 despite a 6.9 drop compared to 2009. Latest INSTAT data show total electricity losses in 2010 were 2,167 GWh accounting for 24.9 percent of the electricity available for use. Distribution energy losses dropped by 9.7 percent but continued making up a majority of 88.2 percent of total losses in the grid.
INSTAT data show the electricity sources in 2010 rose by 21.2 percent year-on-year. Total domestic production rose by 47.5 percent in 2010 covering 88.5 percent of the country’s needs for electricity. The situation was a result of heavy rainfall during 2010 supplying the country’s hydropower plants which were the only source of energy production in 2010. A considerable 78 percent increase was also reported in the small hydropower plants operating under concession contracts which accounted for 2.1 percent of total domestically produced electricity.
Power consumption also saw a 7.1 percent increase in 2010 with the household consumers holding the major 56.2 percent of total consumption.
Electricity imports in 2010 dropped by 48.9 percent constituting only 11.5 percent of total energy resources.
INSTAT data show that net exports in 2010 more than trebled increasing to 1.73 million MWh, up from only 486,418 MWh in 2009.
The favourable hydro-situation in the country’s hydropower plants (HPPs) secured the Albanian Power Corporation (KESH) a record 120 million euros in profits from electricity exports in 2010.
According to Engjell Zeqo, the director of the state-owned Power Corporation monopoly, the boom of exports allowed KESH to pay off the majority of its accumulated debts, considerably improving the financial situation of the company in charge of electricity production from HPPs which accounts for more than 95 percent of domestically produced power. Despite managing to pay off 110 million euros, KESH still has 65 million euros in debts for electricity imports during 2007 and 2008.
KESH’s revenues in 2010 reached 27 billion lek (200 million euros). The record level of electricity exports were one of the main contributors to the country’s total exports which rose by 63 percent year-on-year during the January-August period.
Heavy rains forced KESH to open the water discharge gates several times last year, causing huge flood damage to the Shkodra region, some areas of which were inundated five times during 2010.
A recent decision by the Energy Regulatory Agency (ERE) obliges state owned electricity producer KESH to sell energy to private distribution operator CEZ at 1.48 lek kWh starting from next January, down from 2.03 lek currently, considerably increasing the Czech company’s revenues which had desperately demanded price increase to handle rising costs and new grid investments.
Under some recent recommendations made to government and ERE, the latter being a legally independent institution, the Competition Authority demands that both state owned electricity producer KESH, and private electricity distribution operator CEZ should operate financially and functionally separated from their wholesale and retail public suppliers.
Currently, state owned KESH, is composed by two vertically integrated segments known as KESH-Gen and the public wholesale supplier.
