Crisis, natural gas more expensive than electricity

Albania is facing another difficult year for the electric power, and the natural gas could be useful, but this is not happening.

The Albanian gas market is canalized with government order only in one discharging implant, at Porto Romano. Last summer, several companies have been blocked from operating.

The Competition Authority asked all imports to be allowed, but this didn’t resolve the situation. The government has created a limited import situation with their decisions, and it is still unclear if the gas price has increased due to the competition limits, or other factors.

On the other hand, the Energy Regulation Entity decided last December to refuse the KESH request for increasing the electricity price in order to pay the import, and this year it is more expensive than one year ago.

Meanwhile, the Albanians have showed the tendency to pass from cooking with gas to the usage of electricity.

In Western Europe, gas is much cheaper than the electricity and it is used for heating and cooking, while electricity is used only for lights, laundry and other appliances. Electricity is often a sub product of natural gas.

But there are exceptions to this rule. Countries that secure most of the electricity from hydropower plants or nuclear power plants have cheaper electricity than gas.

Albania is somewhere in the middle and the hydropower electricity production is much cheaper, but most of it is imported and comes expensive, which causes an expensive national bill, combined with the limitations of the natural gas.

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