On Monday, December 12, Bulgaria had to import electricity from Greece, with a capacity of 300 MW per hour. An additional 250 MW is provided from Turkey, and part of the supply also comes from North Macedonia (140 MWh).
Normally, Bulgaria exports electricity to these countries, but the situation has changed because the Kozloduy nuclear power plant is operating at 50% capacity, after unit 6 went into an unplanned overhaul for an indefinite period. Overhaul is also underway at one of the units of the Marica Istok 2 state thermal power plant.
That is why Bulgaria is currently a net importer of electricity, for now only in certain intervals. This is not a problem at the moment, because cheaper energy is imported instead of activating reserve capacities, such as the Varna gas power plant. However, the situation could become more complicated in case of the announced cooling.
On Monday afternoon, Bulgarian power plants produced a capacity of about 5,000 MW per hour, while domestic demand was slightly more than 5,070 MW. The missing quantities were provided from imports – from Greece, Turkey, North Macedonia and Serbia, but not all quantities remained in Bulgaria, as exports to Romania were recorded.
Domestic production mostly comes from coal-fired thermal power plants – 3,142 MW. NEk operates with 1,074 MW, and in third place are combined power plants with 367 MW. Due to cloudy weather and lack of wind, the contribution of RES is only about 100 MW. Hydroelectric power plants also do not work with great power, because there is not enough water in the reservoirs.
At the same time, in Greece the production from RES is extremely high and in certain intervals it covers close to 50% of the demand. This enables lower prices in Greece and, accordingly, competitiveness on the regional market.
Source: capital.bg
