The Georgian government has decided to sell the newly commissioned wind power plant to private investors. The wind farm is currently owned by “Qartli Wind Farm” Ltd, whose shareholders are state-owned companies Georgian Energy Development Fund (GEDF) and Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC). Shares of the Qartli wind farm will be sold via public auction, after an evaluation by an independent audit company. The terms of the auction will be announced after the final audit report is issued. The WPP has supplied on average 0.5% of monthly electricity demand since it commenced operations in November 2016.
EU4ENERGY regional office was opened in Tbilisi on March 10, 2017. EU4Energy is a four-year European Union technical assistance project launched in June 2016. The overall objective of the 3rd component of EU4ENERGY, with a budget of EUR 6.8mn, is to improve the beneficiary countries’ legislative and regulatory environment in the energy sector, in line with their EU obligations and best practices.
Domestic consumption increased 13.0% y/y in February 2017, with the Abkhazian region and eligible consumers driving the growth. Consumption of distribution companies increased 9.1% y/y: consumption was up 8.3% y/y by Telasi, 4.9% y/y by Kakheti Energy Distribution, and 10.0% y/y by Energo- Pro. Consumption of the Abkhazian region was up 19.9% y/y and accounted for 23.1% of domestic consumption. Consumption by eligible consumers was up significantly (+24.8% y/y).
Growth in domestic consumption was met mostly through imported electricity. Total electricity supply from domestic sources was flat (-0.5% y/y), while imports more than doubled (+106.2% y/y) and TPP increased by 62.2% y/y in February 2017. Only one third (34.2%) of domestic consumption needs was met by hydro generation. The main reasons for the change in the electricity supply mix were bad hydrological conditions affecting most HPPs and Enguri HPP’s 10-day closure. The HPP halted operations to allow experts interested in the Enguri tunnel rehabilitation consultancy tender to walk through the tunnel and evaluate the scope of work. Guaranteed capacity fee was down 23.1% y/y to USc 0.66/kWh, with guaranteed capacity provided by each of the five sources for most of the month. Almost half of the imported electricity came from Azerbaijan (47.3%), with the rest imported from Russia (42.6%) and Armenia (10.2%).
Wholesale market prices in Georgia decreased 7.0% y/y to USc 5.1/kWh, 5.7% above the Turkish market clearing price in February 2017. The average price of imported electricity in Georgia decreased 22.6% y/y, notably from the very low base in February 2016 (-31.7% y/y). The main reason for such a meaningful decrease was the subsidized price of imported electricity from Russia (via the Salkhino line), which was mainly directed to the Abkhazian region to meet its continuously increasing demand.
