“The power system is stable and sustainable, with minimal deviations or deviations that are within the planned and permissible levels. In the forthcoming period, we expect no difficulties in controlling the power system and such a constant trend”, said the first man of AD MEPSO, Orhan Murtezani, in today’s press briefing. Giving an overview of the so far accomplished, he pointed out that the realization percentage of the planned investments in 2022 is doubled compared to 2021. Therefore, AD MEPSO finishes this year with a realization of 42,48% of the general investment plan compared to the realized 23% from the last year. Moreover, the total operational costs had been lowered by 13,4%, while the greatest lowering is in the salaries and allowances for the employees of 9,47%.
“We have more ambitious plans for the following 2023”, said Murtezani. In the upcoming year, AD MEPSO will invest 16 million euros from their funds to procure a reactor and transformer for SS Dubrovo and a new SCADA system in the National Control Centre.
Regarding renewable energy sources, Murtezani emphasized that the company faces a wave of applications for photovoltaic power stations and wind farms. The transmission network may sustain a connection of additional RES with a capacity of 750 MW, but the requests for connecting are ten times above that capacity. “We are doing everything in our power to connect those energy sources to the transmission network, but the answer to whether and how much it is possible to increase the capacity of the transmission network will give the ongoing studies. Nevertheless, not all depends on MEPSO, but on the ESM balancing capacity too”, explained Murtezani.
While expecting the decision by ERC for any alterations of the energy price from January 1, AD MEPSO requested an increase of the regulated tariff for 29,75% based on the increased costs for losses in the transmission network, increased costs for procurement of balancing capacity and increased prices of electricity for auxiliary needs of the company. “We tried the offered increase to be acceptable, but whatever the decision by ERC, the part of the transmission tariff in the final price of the electricity is not exceeding 5%”, said Murtezani.
The measures for electricity-saving, which the company has been practising since the beginning of the energy crisis, resulted in 14.7% lower electricity costs for November compared to the same month last year. To be more precise, the total savings of AD MEPSO reached EUR 47,000.