Kosovo's government held a meeting today to address its short-term power supply concerns, as land ownership issues are preventing state-owned utility Kek from accessing the lignite required to fuel its plants.
Prime minister Isa Mustafa met with the environment and economic development ministries and Kek's managing director, Arben Gjukaj, to discuss overcoming the electricity generation difficulties that the country expects to face.
The institutions "pledged to accelerate all actions to address and resolve the problems as soon as possible, so that property and construction issues do not endanger power output", the government said.
Kek has had to halt lignite mining in Hade and Shipitulle, as Pristina has not purchased the land necessary for expanding operations. The firm late last week proposed the expropriation of 17 properties near its excavators, stressing that any delay threatens an end to mining work.
"Any delay risks... a lack of electricity production, which will would force us to import supply from other countries at much higher prices," Mustafa said.
Transmission capacity should be available to enable traders and suppliers to meet demand, "in the event of a significant increase in imports", Kosovan transmission system operator Kostt said.
But regional power systems are already significantly strained. Albanian distribution firm OSHEE bought 350MW of base load and 350MW of peak load for August at higher-than-expected prices in its tender last week, amid a regional drought.
And a 500MW unit at Hungary's Paks nuclear plant recently commenced maintenance, while Slovak capacity has suffered unplanned outages, pushing spot prices in Serbia and Croatia above €80/MWh.
