October 7 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia's state-owned electricity producer ESM will increase its power output from coal from December 2021 to April 2022 to meet demand from companies as the global energy crisis intensifies, ESM general manager Vasko Kovacevski said on Thursday.
ESM will offer the power surplus to local companies at prices lower than those on the free energy market, where industrial consumers buy electricity, Kovacevski said in a press release.
Electricity prices have trebled on the regional energy exchanges in the past months and there is no sign that they will decrease soon, Kovacevski said.
ESM plans to increase coal mining and purchase additional coal to increase electricity production. Under the plan, the company will activate the last, third unit of the REK Bitola thermal power plant and continue to operate the REK Oslomej thermal power plant.
The country planned to stop the operation of Oslomej as part of a plan to build a solar power plant at the site of an old coal mine in the plant.