Energy production in Albania increased by 89% last year in Albania

Final statistics confirmed that electricity production almost doubled over the previous year. According to the Institute of Statistics, this output amounted to 8600 GWh (gigabytes). Compared to 2017, electricity production increased by 89%, especially thanks to large river flows in the first half of the year.

Higher output also contributed to the growth of energy exports. Last year, Albania exported five times more energy, with significant impact on the country’s trade balance. Also, energy is estimated to have been the sector with the highest contribution to economic growth for the previous year, at least for the 9-month period.

On the other hand, these figures show once again that the energy sector in Albania, but also the trade balance and economic growth, have a high dependence on the hydro conditions. All the electricity produced locally comes from hydro power plants, while alternative sources of power generation are virtually zero. This results in frequent fluctuations in production year by year, depending on the flow of rivers.

To diversify production, the greatest expectations are from solar sources. The Albanian government has approved a project to set up a photo-voltaic park in Vlora, while two projects for floating photo-voltaic parks are expected to be implemented by the Albanian Power Corporation as well as from Devoll Hydro-power.

The energy system, meanwhile, continues to have a high level of network losses. For the past year, however, this ratio went up to 23.3%, down from 25.2% in the same period a year earlier. According to Institute of Statistics, distribution losses fell to 20.1%, which is even lower than the statistics reported by the Electricity Distribution Operator.

Scan  10.03.2019