North Macedonia's government declared a 30-day state of crisis due to difficulties in power supply caused by production outages and lack of additional sources for electricity generation, it said.
The state of crisis allows authorities to take various measures, including financial intervention, to provide additional supply of electricity in case of need, the government said in a statement on Tuesday.
The reasons for the current crisis in power supply may lead to electricity shortage or disruption of the stability of the country's power system, the government added.
Production at REK Bitola coal-fired power plant was recently halted twice in less than a week due to a fire and a pipe malfunction, local broadcaster Telma reported. REK Bitola, which is North Macedonia's primary electricity generation capacity, has enough coal in stock for eight days of production, according to the media report.
North Macedonia's state-owned electricity producer ESM recently launched calls for coal supply for the needs of REK Bitola and REK Oslomej thermal power plant.
ESM general manager, Vasko Kovacevski, said last month that the company will increase its power output from coal from December 2021 to April 2022, to meet demand from local companies as the global energy crisis deepens. ESM also said it would put into operation the third unit of REK Bitola and continue to operate REK Oslomej TPP.
The government previously intended to stop the operation of REK Oslomej as part of a plan to build a solar power plant at the site of an old coal mine in the mining and energy complex.
(SeeNews, November 10, 2021)
