BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan.31
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Import of electricity increased by 7.8 percent year-on-year in Georgia and reached 1.6 TWh in 2019, Trend reports referring to Georgian investment company Galt & Taggart.
Notably, in 2019 electricity was imported in July along with August – the months generally considered as most suitable for export. According to the company, 68 percent of electricity was imported from Azerbaijan and the rest came from Russia (32 percent).
Trade deficit widened by 24.2 percent year-on-year and reached its record high of $70.5 million in 2019. The cost of import increased by 3.4 percent year-on-year and reached $78.3 million, from which $22 million was spent on imports from Russia.
On the other side, revenue from electricity exports was 10-year low amounting to $7.8 million. A 58.8-percent annual decrease of electricity exports to mere 0.2 TWh is explained by deficit on local market and comparatively low profitability of export markets.
For the first time in 2019, electricity was included in the list of top-10 imported products. Its share in the country's total imports was 0.86 percent in 2019 and has been in this range (0.8 percent-0.9 percent) since 2017.
Electricity transit from Azerbaijan to Turkey through Georgia reached 136.2 GWh in 2019. The transit amount increased 10 times compared to 2018, but is far below the high transit levels of 2016 and 2017.
Balancing electricity price in Georgia was $4.8 per kWh (a decrease of 5 percent year-on-year) in 2019. The slight decrease of the average balancing price is attributable to the access of Georgian Electricity System Commercial Operator (ESCO) to the Enguri’s cheap electricity and consequently decreased average price of electricity.
As reported, 21.4 percent of total electricity supplied to the grid was traded through the market operator (ESCO), with the rest traded through bilateral contracts.
Turkish electricity prices averaged $4.7 per kWh in 2019 (a decrease of 1.3 percent year-on-year).
Notably, in May and June, the main export months for Georgia, average electricity prices in Turkey were lower, $3.4 per kWh and $4.1 per kWh, respectively. This partially explains the lowered export amount to Turkey.
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