Old apartment blocks equipped with power meters

TIRANA, Aug 13 – Tirana’s Water Supply and Sewerage Enterprise has announced it will install new water meters in some 1,000 apartment blocks built before the 90s during the country’s communist regime. The 50 million lek project expected to end this year will eliminate fixed rate bills and abuses. The enterprise now run by the Municipality of Tirana is working in several neighborhoods to provide uninterrupted supply of power by April 2013.
Starting from Jan. 1 this year water prices for household and business consumers in four of Albania’s biggest cities increased by up to 45 percent. The decisions were made by the Water Regulatory Entity (WRE) after proposals by the local water supply and sewerage companies which had applied for much higher increases citing rising service costs. Under a WRE decision taken in late Dec. 2011, household consumers in Tirana will pay 45 lek/m3 starting from Jan. 1 this year, up from 33 lek/m3 last year. Business consumers in Tirana pay 135 lek/m3, up from 120 lek/m3 in 2011.
Last May, Tirana’s water supply and sewerage company bought the state-owned Lanabregas hydropower plant for Euro 15 million in an effort to reduce its power costs.