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Where Did I put the Candles?

It seems that we are in for more long blackouts this winter. Last winter the power was off for 10-12 hours most days and KESH, the Albanian utility that manages the electricity system, and the government had been hoping that things would be better this year.

Since, in the short term, Albania cannot boost its own generation of electricity, the plan was to buy it from other countries. Now it turns out that one of the major exporters, Bulgaria, is no longer in a position to help. The EU has insisted, as a condition of Bulgaria's accession, that the country decommission two Soviet era nuclear reactors at its Kozloduy plant. According to Hotnews.ro, a Romanian news agency,
the closure of Kozloduy III and IV will drain about 40 per cent of the pool of electricity that Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo use to cover their energy deficits.
With less electricity on the market, competition for supplies will increase and prices will rise. The result is that, even if Albania does manage to buy up enough supply, it will be paying more for its electricity and that means higher prices for the consumer, together with some inevitable power cuts - tough enough for ordinary people, but tougher still for businesses.

Comments

Anonymous said…
in communism times we at least had electricity and water 24/7. if there was a blackout at that time, the head engineer would end up in prison.
5:54 pm
olli said…
Think I prefer the blackouts
1:50 pm
Anonymous said…
Hello Anonymous, was your communism time somewhere inside "blloku" that you had electricity and water 24/7 or did you live in some country other than Albania?

I can get you plenty of people from different cities and villages that will admit having limited water supply and interruption of electricity power during winter. Giving you an example, Berat produced plenty of "soba ngrohjeje me vajgur", also, water would come at 5 in the morning for people who had to wake up and fill some bottles.

Anyways, communism had its good sides among a lot of bad sides, but the people who are running the country for 15 years haven't provided any huge support to improve the situation.

Greetz
4:01 pm
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