Consumption of power up, production down

The use of electric power in Moldova, excluding the eastern raions, has slightly increased in the first quarter by 0.21 kWh, against the same period last year, and constituted 816.3 mln kWh, Info-Prim Neo learned from a report of the National Regulatory Agency in Energy (NRAE). According to the Press Service of NRAE, these results were registered on the background of a 10.1% drop in the domestic production of power and 1.7% increase in purchases from Ukraine. In the first quarter, the power plants in Moldova produced 377.2 mln kWh, and the volume of energy imported from Ukraine amounted to 618.76 mln kWh. The domestic production of electricity contributed 37.9% of the total power supplies, while imports accounted for 62.1%. The NRAE experts consider that the drop in the domestic output is to a great extent due to this year’s mild winter. In light of the fact that the demand for thermal energy was poor, the thermo-electric power stations were not able to produce high volumes of power, the cited sources specified. According to the data provided to the Agency by the distribution companies and eligible consumers, 995.96 mln kWh of energy were purchased in the first quarter, by 3.3% less against the same period last year. At the same time, these companies supplied to consumers approximately the same amount of power as in the first quarter last year – 816.30 mln kWh. This was driven by the considerable reduction – by 15.1% - of technologic exports and commercial losses of power: from 177.6 mln kWh, in 2006, to 150.8 mln kWh in 2007. As a consequence, the share of the technologic consumption and of the commercial losses referred to the total volume of distributed power has decreased by 2.1 percentage points – from 17.86% to 15.75%. The rate of unpredicted power losses has reduced by 1.3 percentage points and constituted 2.09% out of the distributed volume of power.