TIRANA, May 28 – State-run power corporation KESH says it plans to pay off half of debts it owes to small private and concession hydropower plants for electricity purchases during the past couple of years. The payments will be made ahead of the June 23 general elections after the company’s finances have considerably improved following heavy rains which have also allowed the corporation to export electricity in the past couple of months.
KESH’s director Halit Zela told reporters the corporation owes small hydropower plants 2 billion lek (Euro 14 million), half of which will be paid off until the end of next June.
KESH says distribution operator CEZ Shperdarje, currently under state administration after the Czechs had their licence revoked, owes the corporation Euro 260 million in accumulated debts, considerably affecting the corporation’s finances.
However, heavy rainfall in the past few weeks considerably improving the hydro situation in the northern Drin Cascade, have allowed the country’s power corporation KESH to increase its exports of electricity slightly improving its troubled finances. KESH sources say some 10-12 million kWh of electricity, worth around Euro 350,000, are being exported each day.
KESH is reported to have collected Euro 20 million from electricity exports in the past two months, somehow easing the troubled finances of the corporation which owes considerable debts to banks and private hydropower plants.
Government awarded KESH 2 billion lek (Euro 14 million) from its contingency funds in early 2012 to make electricity imports, and Euro 40 million few months later.
Since September 2012, when CEZ declared its financial inability to carry out its compulsory power imports, state-run power corporation KESH was forced to carry out all imports, a situation which further deteriorated the utility’s finances and obliged government to award several loan guarantees to secure power supply.
Electricity generation by small HPPs
Some 16 new hydropower plants, built privately or under concession contracts, were put into operation in 2012, taking the total number of operational hydropower plants to 68, according to an annual report by the Energy Regulatory Entity (ERE). Their total installed capacity rose to 195.8 MW of which 120 MW only in 2012 mainly due to the launch into operation of the Ashta HPP, a Euro 200 million investment by Austria’s Verbund and EVN. Electricity generation by the 68 private hydropower plants in 2012 increased to around 300 GWh, accounting for 7 percent of domestic hydroelectricity generation compared to 3.4 percent in 2011.
ERE data show hydropower plants with an installed capacity of up to 15 MW increased their revenue to 2.5 billion lek (Euro 17.5 million) in 2012, up from 1 billion lek in 2011. Private hydropower plant owners have often voiced concern over delays in payments by cash-strapped state-owned power corporation KESH.
Electricity sold by new hydropower plants rose to 9.3 lek/kWh up 35 percent compared to 2011 because of the stimulating government policy calculating them on electricity import prices, says ERE in its 2012 report. Power prices for older private or concession contracts rose to 7.77 lek kWh in 2012, up from 7.57 lek kWh in 2011 based on the average household tariffs.
Since 2007, the Albanian government has awarded 360 concession contracts to private companies, of which only 68 have already been made operational.
