During most of this year, the accumulation level of Albania’s largest hydropower plant, HPP Fierza, was below the multi-year average. Also, the energy reserve of 661 GWh was about 19% less than the multi-year average.
Due to the lack of rainfall, KESH spent hundreds of millions of euros in 2022 to import electricity to cover consumption in the country. However, thanks to heavy rainfall in November and December, the situation improved significantly.
KESH announced that in December energy reserves in cascade hydroelectric power plants increased to 735 GWh, which is 7% above the multi-year average. More than 1 TWh of energy reserves guarantees Albania that it will be easier to cope with the dry months.
The company predicted that during December, 510 GWh of electricity will be delivered to the supplier on the free market (a branch of the OSHEE Group), of which 485 GWh will be provided from cascade HPPs on the Drina. The same document states that imports should reach 50 GWh, with an average price of 380 euros per MWh.
Depending on the hydrological situation, export in December is also possible. Until now, KESH has exported, ie sold on the free market, electricity worth around 14.2 million euros.
The company states that in the period September – November it had lower costs compared to the initial estimate by 125 million euros.
Three scenarios are foreseen for December, where in the basic scenario import costs amount to 19 million euros, in the optimistic scenario there will be no imports, while in the pessimistic scenario the costs of purchases on the free market will reach 38 million euros. Until the middle of December, KESH did not call for tenders for the purchase, but only for the sale and storage of energy.
Source: monitor.al
