November 12 (SeeNews) - Eight companies have placed offers in an international tender for the purchase of 2,500 gigawatthours (GWh) of electricity to cover Albania's domestic power demand until the end of next year, Albania’s state-owned power utility said on Monday.
The eight are: Serbian private Rudnap and GEN-I, Slovenian GEN-I, Albanian power supplier GSA, Swiss power group EGL, Swiss Atel, Swiss-based Energy Financing Team (EFT) and Czech RET, KESH said in a statement.
“In the next four days KESH will announce the chosen suppliers,” the statement said.
KESH has projected the cost of electricity imports in 2008 at 201 million euro ($292.19 million), up from the 162.8 million euro in the current year and the amount of electricity of 2,215 GWh, slightly up from the 2,206GWh for the current year.
The average offered price was 81.40 euro per MWh, the statement said.
Albania's hydro resources generate around 95% of its electricity output. The country has suffered drastic power cuts since the beginning of the year as extreme drought and insufficient investment in outdated power plants coupled with bad management and the December 31 closure of two reactors at Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear plant, from which Albania was buying cheap electricity. Another major problem for Albania is the poor condition of its interconnections with the power grids of its neighbours.
Albania’s electricity consumption has increased by some 3.0% yearly since 1997.
($=0.6879 euro)