Electricity Import Prices from Azerbaijan Fall Again
The price of electricity imported from Azerbaijan has fallen again. Zurab Nogaideli, the member of the Supervisory Board of the company El Green discussed these matters during his visit to the program Sakme of TV Company Palitra.
According to him, if Electricity System Commercial Operator ESCO purchased electricity from El Green in January for 3,9/3,9/5,4 cents (night/weekend/day), in February the tariff was further reduced and remained stable - 4,4/4,4/4,4.
It is also worth mentioning, that before February procurement, Esco also considered imports from both Russia and Turkey, as an alternative to the import from Azerbaijan.
"This has further strengthened our opinion that, in the recent months, the main competitor of El Green and, in general, Azerbaijan on Georgian market is Turkey and not Russia. This was also an inspiration for our decision to make the most attractive price offer to Esco in February - a stable 4,4 cents.", stated Zurab Nogaideli.
He also mentioned, that as long as the main field of the company is to offer electricity imports from Azerbaijan to the Georgian energy system, the company considers it as its obligation to periodically offer a report to the Georgian public on its imports of electricity into the country.
In the February of 2021, electricity imports to Georgia amounted to a total of 413,7 million kilowatt-hours. 258 million kilowatt-hours came from Russia, 148.8 million kilowatt-hours from Azerbaijan, and 6.9 million kilowatt-hours from Turkey.
The electricity imported from Russia, which amounted to 258 million kilowatts/hours, fully consumed to balance the consumption of de facto Abkhazia, and neither Esco nor the state budget paid for it.
Compared to January, the offered price for imports from Russia has been decreased and amounted to 3.5 cents at night, 3.7 cents on weekends, and 7.8 cents during the day. The average price of imports from Turkey according to the requested schedules was 4.595 cents. As for the electricity price imported from Azerbaijan by El Green remained stable - 4.4 cents.
Therefore, if the price of El Green was 3,9/3,9/5,4 in January, it has become 4,4 /4,4 / 4,4 in February.
During the decision-making process, Esco also took into account that most avalanches occur during the month of February, and importing from Russia through a 500 kV high voltage line can be very risky.
Part of the 148.8 million kilowatt-hours imported by El Green from Azerbaijan, in particular - 22.9 million kilowatt-hours, was supplied directly to consumers, while 125.9 million kilowatt-hours were imported by Esco.
As for the electricity imported from Turkey, which amounted to 6.9 million kilowatts/hours, this volume of electricity was returned to the Turkish power system in the first half of March, since the agreement was made in emergency mode with the power exchange principle.