Bulgaria cuts electricity production over flood threat

• 11 years ago (2013-04-06)
• David Flin

North America 998 Nuclear 640

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Bulgaria’s electricity grid operator ESO has said that it was asking all electricity producers in the country to limit their power generation. The company said that it was implementing the measure after exhausting all other available options to keep a balance between production and demand. ESO claimed that the measure was an emergency one, but gave no details how long it could be in effect.

ESO also announced that it has ordered the disconnection of renewable energy producers, in line with the Economy and Energy Ministry’s package of March 26. Under that plan, about 40 per cent of Bulgaria’s renewable energy producers are to be disconnected in order to prevent the electricity grid from overload.

Two of Bulgaria’s three private electricity distribution companies, EVN and CEZ, said that they have already started implementation of the ESO request. Electricity generation at Bulgaria’s Kozloduy nuclear power station and at coal-fired plants would also be reduced. The only facilities that are not affected by the order to cut production were hydropower plants.

Bozhan Stoyanov, Deputy Economy Minister, said: “Many dams are full and will continue to fill for some time. This water needs to be put to use in order to avoid floods, which gives us no option but to limit electricity production from other sources. Electricity consumption has decreased significantly, to a point that we are in a situation of having to make a difficult choice of which power plants and electricity producers to shut down.”

The lower demand for electricity is due to the warm weather, while at the same time, state electricity utility NEK ha contractual commitments to buy all the electricity produced by several large power plants, thus the need to reduce production at other facilities.