Why can't Kosovo create electricity reserves?

Because of the highly unfavourable structure of the dominant power generation capacities (three Kosovo blocks A and 2 blocks of Kosovo B, which produce over 95 percent of the current in the country), Kosovo's electromagnetic system is placed in many difficult cases under emphasis during efforts to fulfill its mission. This is because coal-based production (at thermal power plants) is very low, which is reflected then in certain moments and seasons of the year in the country's consumption supply.

The difficulties, which are worse, the dissect in most cases, during the winter season and days with freezing temperatures, when normal, significantly increase electricity consumption in Kosovo, and when electricity generated by local capacities is lacking. While during the summer months, there are also occasional difficulties which, in many cases, have to do with the obvious electricity surplus, produced by local capacities, which are the result of a significant reduction in electricity consumption.

In many cases, for electricity tericates at KEK, especially during the summer months and hours of the night, there is no difficulty in finding the market to crack. Simply, in the international energy markets of this time, there is no need for electricity, so KEK owes it conditionally or trade these low-priced surpluses, sometimes even below the cost of production, or shut off operation in a power plant block.

However, even the removal of a stabilizer has very high costs because it will then have to spend thousands of tons of mazut, which will damage him significantly KEK.

It must be said that Kosovo's KEK and its entire electromagnetic system has been welcome and a lot of contribution to electricity exchange with Albania since the KEK-ESH Agreement has been implemented for exchange of electricity surpluses. This exchange has benefited both states. But the exchange agreement has already proved very favourable for Kosovo. And this, it best testifies last winter, when about 150 thousand megavat hours of electricity deposited by KEK in KESH during the past summer, in the winter season when Kosovo was in great need, they returned to KEK.

In fact, during the winter of 2022-2023, Kosovo, except for the return of the electricity loan, Albania borrowed about 36 thousand megavats per hour, which it is returning during these days. Another defect, with the obvious consequence for Kosovo's Electronic Corporation, of dominant production capacities as an absolute, exclusively supported coal-based majority, is also the inability to store electricity, to create reserves for the difficult days, until hydropower capacities (herocentrals) can be stored by giving up water use for days of crisis (by storing amounts of water in hydro-powered water lakes). These are more or less problems posed by the dominance of the production capacities of lignite.

However, for Kosovo's electromagnetic system of considerable stress and consequences, there are also the highly distasteful structure of the electricity suppliers. In Kosovo, as it is known, they dominate the consumers of the so-called household group at large, while the industry's consumer group is still not too big, and that fact affects the stability of the electromagnetic system.

In Kosovo, the consumption of a group of household consumers, or family and individual consumption, is increasingly spent, not rarely even more than night, but the group of industry consumers, which is marked worldwide with great spending at night, or at least equal by day and night, are still very low in us. When this data is taken into account, KEK in the current state and with existing capacities (three Kosovo blocks A, A3, A4 and A5, with capacity each of the 130 megavats per hour and B1 and B2 of Kosovo B with power from 260 megawatts each), there is little possible to create any power reserves for winter days.

Power developments in the country continue to stress as the only possibility of <x0-reservation” of energy from KEK, the cooling of thermal power through continued rehabilitation and technical resolutions of stabilisations in all existing blocks. They cite last year's example, when throughout the winter, which is the truth, it was the softest “” that winters last year have worked well and without any major technical problems of all blocks of both Kosova A, and Kosovo B thermal power plants. This, according to KEK engineers, has been achieved thanks to relevant remonts in the plants and turbines of thermal power plants realised in the summer months.

Since even during these summer months good works have been accomplished by “cooling” of thermal plant stabilisations, especially in Kosovo B turbines, where the remortem has already been completed, tell the capital of one bloc's turbine, which has lasted about 3 months, and is continuing the same remont in the other bloc, is hoping for a technical readiness of the long-standing thermal power plants even in the expected winter.

However, if publicly declared remontes were done as stated by officials and according to recognised standards, it would be a help to have more electricity and ease the obvious shortages presented in the freezing months in Kosovo's consumption.

More precisely, there is no dilemma that even in the winter of 2023/2024, Kosovo will have a significant lack of electricity for its own consumption needs. Local capacity, even if they work rhythmically and without interruption (Kosovo B with both blocs produces 520 megavats, while Kosovo A with all three ready and currently in production, produces a total of approximately 400 megavats, plus dozens of megavats from renewable energy capacities), do not meet in the cold winter months the increased consumption needs it can reach as much as 13040 megata hours. And, the great disproportion of the needs of local consumption from the production of existing thermopacycites (termocentrals Kosova A and Kosova B), which translates into the huge lack of electricity during the cold winter days, especially in December, January and February, would probably be eased considerably by thermal frescoing and whether there will be waters in Drin's Kaskada's concusing lakes, by energy borrowed from KESH.

This is expected to be the real situation in the country's electromagnetic system in the cold winter months. Restracts will be inevitable, even if thermal power plants work in the most ideal way possible, and if an amount of electricity shortages are filled, if the concussor lakes of the Drini Cascal in Albania are filled, it will come in exchange for KESH, or as a return of KEK-responsed loan to KESH during the summer months. But even if there will be more relaxed power reductions, Kosovo should necessarily import a small amount of electricity at frightening high prices.

After all, it is well known that the authorities also know that Kosovo would avoid expensive remittances and import, only if it built new power producers, whose construction by unconvincing reasoning has been prolonged for years. /Economic Bouletin