Macedonia, Serbia Go Dark to Save Power

Skopje | Photo by: AP Boris Grdanoski

Neighbouring Serbia and Macedonia have announced a range of emergency measures designed to meet a growing power shortage, with public lights going off and an extra holiday in Serbia.

“All people, households and companies need to demonstrate responsibility,” Macedonia's Vice Prime Minister, Vladimir Pesevski, said, acting to calm fears about compulsory restrictions.
 
Macedonia's power shortage is mostly due to sharply increased consumption in the recent cold snap that has hit the Balkans.

The problem is worsened by lower production rates in the country’s hydro-power plants, which have had a dry year. Imports are hard to get hold of because of similar problems in neighboring Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Romania.

“We face a serious shortage of energy,” Vlatko Cingoski, head of ELEM, Macedonia's state power production company, said.

In case the emergency worsens, the country plans to turn on its last reserve, an oil-operated power plant in Negotino. But authorities say they only have enough oil to keep the plant going for ten days.

Responding to the call to make savings, the Macedonian capital, Skopje, has turned off most street lights, billboards, and decorative lights on bridges and buildings in the centre.

Meanwhile, industrial consumers, which buy power on world markets, faces possible cuts in production, the Macedonia’s Economic Chamber, SKM, says.

“Major consumers are having to to pay 30 per cent more already for their electricity and some are considering halting production,” Daniela Mihajlovska, from SKM, warned. One of the country’s biggest metal producers, Makstil, has already reduced production.

To the north of Macedonia, Serbian's government is wrestling with similar problems.

Last week, on February 9, it cut off power to some companies that are major consumers, but whose work is not deemed vital to the daily life of the country.

Local authorities were urged to turn off decorative lighting on public buildings and reduce public lighting in general.

Consumption of electricity has since fallen by about 9 per cent. But the authorities say the power system is still struggling.

“We all need to show solidarity. Circumstances are extremely difficult and I urge citizens to save electricity so we can overcome this,” President Boris Tadic said on Tuesday while visiting a mine at Kolubara.

Dragomir Markovic, director of Serbia's main public power company, Electrical Power Industry, EPS, said restrictions on households' use of power remained unlikely.

Since the cold wave upped consumption of power, Serbia has been importing more than 20 million kilowatts an hour of electricity per day, mostly from Hungary.

As in Macedonia, a major problem is lower levels of production from hydro-power plants. Owing to the dry year in 2011, they are working at only 25 per cent of normal capacity.

To save power, the government has declared Friday February 17 an extra holiday. As Serbia celebrates statehood day on Wednesday, that day Thursday and Friday will all be non-working days.

The extreme cold has caused power shortages across Central and Eastern Europe, raising worries even among some of the biggest regional power producers such as Germany and France.