TIRANA, Dec.3- High prices have forced the Albanian Electro energy corporation to partly annul the bid for purchasing energy and declare a new bid for an increased amount that was not requested in the previous bid. KESH did not buy enough energy for 2008, because the prices offered by the companies were quite high and the corporation is facing significant financial problems. KESH, hence, bought energy only for the first three months of 2008 and plans to buy the rest at a later date. An additional reason to postpone some electricity purchases has been the improving situation at the largest hydropower plants in the north of the country, a result of the increasing rainfall of the season.
Purchases
The corporation has declared that from December of this year until March 2008 it will spend 83,2 million euro to purchase 995 million kilowatt/hours of energy. Prices have varied between 67,9 euro per megawatt to 90,2 and KESH has decided to buy from seven different companies out of eight participants in the bid. The initial plan was for KESH to buy 2,4 billion kilowatt with a total value of 222 million euro to fully satisfy the Albanian demand for energy. However the improving conditions, due to winter rainfalls, have made the corporation more optimistic about the amount of imports it has to secure. This decision has also been conditioned by the limited finances available to KESH.
