Electricity (Pixabay)
The Montenegrin Elektroprivreda company is not considering rolling blackouts nor a hike in electricity prices for households and businesses, despite prices being five times lower than the market price, BETA was told by the company.
Elektroprivreda Crne Gore has said that it is operating rationally for now and maintainining regular supplies to homes and businesses, without additional losses.
A statement said that the price on the stock exchange had reached over EUR200 per Mwh (megawatt hour) while the price of electricity to homes and small businesses is EUR43 per Mwh.
“Of course the current situation is having an increasing impact on Elektroprivreda Crne Gore’s business dealings and the instability of electricity prices will force us to bring certain decisions more carefully,” the company said.
It added that the time was coming when Montenegro would not have to buy electricity when the hydrological situation was normal.
“Extreme drought combined with a serious crash at the Pljevlja coal-fired electricity plant could threaten the company’s solvency, because of large imports, but these are truly hard to believe scenarios,” the company said.
The Perucica and Piva hydroelectricity power plants produced 1,438 Gwh (gigawatt hours) this year, which is 23 percent more than planned.
The Pljevlja power plant produced 875 Gwh of electricity in the first three quarters which is 15 percent less year-on-year and the reason for that was that it fell out of the system due to minor technical issues.
Elektropriveda resorts to buying electricity during overhauls of the Pljevlja power plant or when the plant falls out of the system.
The reservoirs of hydroelectric power plants currently hold 220 Gwh worth of power which is 36 percent less than planned.
“Elektroprivreda plans on importing around 700 Gwh of electricity which is 34 percent less than last year but the costs will be 64 percent higher, due to a jump in prices,” representatives told BETA.
Elektroprivreda Crne Gore has framework outline contracts with around 20 companies, traders and manufacturers and is connected to neighboring states and, therefore, the rest of Europe, via its transmission grid and interconnecting overhead power lines.
The pillar of its electricity system, the Pljevlja hydropower plant, currently generates 60 percent of Montenegro’s energy needs.
On the occasion of the 1000th edition of Beta Monitor, a specialized economic bulletin focused on South East European countries, Beta News Agency is releasing a series of articles on energy available free of charge on www.beta.rs in Serbian and on www.betabriefing.com in English.
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