TIRANA: Albania will raise the price of electricity for families and businesses in line with advice from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but it will protect the needy, Energy Minister Damian Gjiknuri said on Wednesday.
Fully reliant on water to produce electricity, Albania has seen its energy costs rise because drought, mismanagement and theft have forced it to import about half of its needs. Costly imports have become a risk to the state budget and growth.
The year-old Socialist-led coalition government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, which signed a three-year support package with the IMF in February, approved on Wednesday a $150 million loan to overhaul the electricity sector.
"In every case, the government will protect consumers in need. This means that poor consumers, Albanian families in need, will not be affected by this reform in the energy sector," Gjiknuri told a news conference when asked about the price rise.
"Our goal is to have electricity at a better price and to have a steady supply of electricity because the financial gap in the energy sector has been covered by the state for several years," Gjiknuri said.
Albanian families pay 7.7 leks ($0.07) per kilowatt hour (KWh) if they consume less than 300 KWh a month, but the price goes up to 13.5 leks per KWh for the amount consumed above that limit.
Industrial consumers pay 9.10 leks per KWh and 10.47 leks at peak hour. The electricity sector reform seeks to boost the liquidity of the KESH state monopoly power producer and the newly nationalized OSHEE retail electricity distributor by cutting theft and losses and deregulating prices for commercial consumers.
Prices will most likely go up next year when the current regulatory framework expires and the power board will rule on price change applications from KESH, wholesale transmitter OST and OSHEE, which Albania bought back in June from the Czech CEZ utility after a botched privatisation.
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