MACEDONIA TO SEE ELECTRICITY CRISIS AFTER BULGARIA’S NPP CLOSURE- EXPERTS

09:01 Wed 21 Feb 2007

Macedonia could suffer energy crisis after the closure of units three and four of Bulgaria’s Kozloduy nuclear power plant (NPP), experts said.

If Macedonia imported the electricity it needed, it would have to pay high prices, Macedonian newspaper Dnevnik said. The country would have to provide at least 150 million euro to cover its electricity shortage.

Electricity demand in the whole region continued to increase, especially after the units’ closure, Dnevnik said as quoted by Bulgarian news agency BTA.

All Balkan countries sought electricity importers. The average electricity price in the region was 6.5 euro cents and almost the whole region was already importing energy.

After the reactor’s closure Balkan countries will have to import electricity from the Western countries where the price is much higher.

In Montenegro the electricity bills already exceeded the income of nearly 90 per cent of the population, Dnevnik said.

Bulgaria was the Balkans’ major electricity exporter, but it had to close two units of its six-reactor NPP in the end of 2006 as a pre-condition for the country’s EU accession. The country had already closed another two units of the NPP in 2002.

Comments

Comments by Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace - 10:45 21 Feb 2007
	"Macedonia could... if..." - indeed. Like EU Energy Commissioner Piebalgs pointed out: it is time for Bulgaria to start looking to the future instead of constantly looking to the past. Importing a large part of needed electricity is foolishness - whether it comes from Kozloduy or other sources. Macedonia and Montenegro hardly invested in their electricity infrastructure (nor in their energy efficiency) since halfway the 1980s. They pay the price for that now. Importing energy is wasting energy - transport of electricity adds to the losses on the generation side. Energy efficiency investments, decentralised generation of electricity and investment in a stable grid are the logical answers for Macedonia and Montenegro. Not whining Bulgarian politicians still believing in outdated technology.
Comments by marija jankovska, Eco-sense, Macedonia - 15:55 22 Feb 2007
	:-) it is interesting that next day (yesterday) after this article was published, Dnevnik published another article with title "The Government does not believe in energy crises" :-) . Why Sofia Echo does not publish this, or the interview with Jan Haverkamp from Greenpeace published in December last year in the same newspaper and with the same journalist? :-)