At the latest tender for the procurement of electricity in August, Albanian electricity distribution company OSHEE paid the record price of 149 euros/MWh.
Namely, for the delivery between 18 and 31 August, OSHEE bought 84,800 MWh at a price ranging from 144 to 149 euros/MWh, while for the first half of August, delivery was agreed at a slightly lower price of 119 euros/MWh. The average price of electricity for import during August was 145.8 euros/MWh.
In the January-August 2021 period, OSHEE’s electricity imports amounted to 38 million euros. The amount of purchased electricity in this period was 311,223 MWh, and the average price is 122.33 euros/MWh. For comparison, during the same period in 2020, a total of 1,279,039 MWh were purchased, for some 60.3 million euros, at an average price of 47.17 euros/MWh.
Factors that affected the increase in prices in 2021 are high prices on the Hungarian energy exchange (HUPX), which in 2021 increased by 106 % compared to 2020, with the prices reaching the highest value in July and August: the average price was 95.15 euros/MWh in July and 110.3 euros/MWh in August.
In addition, the total expenditures for the import of electricity this year include other costs, such as transmission, which in certain intervals reached 30 -40 euros/MWh. This situation is a consequence of the conflict between the Serbian and Kosovo transmission operators, which is why Albania uses alternative routes for the import of electricity, instead of the shortest one – from Serbia and through Kosovo to the border with Albania.