SOFIA (Bulgaria), November 14 (SeeNews) – Bulgarian traders of electricity, frustrated by the regulated environment on the domestic market, are looking abroad for business, seeking exports and new market opportunities, an industry official said.
“Now, we are shifting focus from the domestic market to a more aggressive policy for exports [...] We will try on the Greek energy pool,” Nikolai Vuzev, head of Bulgaria's leading electricity trader, Energy Finance Group, which trades with a capacity of some 100MW, told SeeNews.
Bulgaria, where the state-run power utility NEK controls the transmission lines and sets quotas to power generators for the free market, is yet to agree on the first steps towards establishing some kind of an energy trading platform and to set up a regulatory framework for settlement and clearing of such transactions.
However, despite state control on the sector, private trading of electricity from Bulgaria will intensify with the launch of the first 400-kilovolt (KV) transmission line to neighbouring Macedonia and a planned link with Greece, said Vuzev.
The trading companies of energy majors operating in Bulgaria like E.ON, EVN and CEZ are already active on the Greek pool, where trade is also expected to liven up after completion of the Macedonian-Bulgarian link, due at end-November.
Vuzev believes a new nuclear power plant will mark a turning point for traders. “Belene will untap the market – there will be lots of electricity,” he said.
At present, the existing 2,000- megawatt (MW) Kozloduy nuclear plant is the sole source of competitively priced power for several dozen registered traders in the country. However, only a few of them are active, because of the little available electricity for the free market and the few eligible customers.
Bulgaria picked in October Germany’s RWE as strategic investor for 49% of the 2,000-MW Belene nuclear plant to be built by Russian Atomstroyexport by 2013-2014 at an estimated cost of four billion euro ($5.15 billion). NEK will own 51% of the plant.
By building a nuclear plant endorsed by the European Union, which it joined last year, Bulgaria hopes to regain its status as a key power exporter in southeast Europe which it lost after closing down four Soviet-made reactors of 440 megawatts each at Kozloduy by end-2006, under pressure from the EU.
“If a tender is called, we will take part in any case,” said Vuzev, referring to both the possibility for booking electricity from Belene in advance and funding the project in return for electricity.
Bulgaria will be able to export some 10% of its electricity output after the launch of Belene, according to NEK. The country's electricity consumption this year is expected to grow by some 3.0% to 39.8 terawatthours (TWh) and it expects to cover just 13% of the electricity deficits in southeast Europe this year, down from 37% in 2007, because of ongoing repairs and modernisation of the country's coal-fired power plants.
“I hope that the issue with Turkey will be solved and the market will again be beyond the Balkans, regardless of Belene,” said Vuzev.
The Turkish market is huge and expensive, he added.
Turkey agreed in 1998 to import electricity from Bulgaria for 10 years in return for Turkish participation in infrastructure projects. However, the projects never started and Turkey halted power imports from Bulgaria in 2003, heralding lengthy legal procedures to resolve the issue.