A dry spell has just begun for the Albanian electricity system.

After an auspicious season lasting more than 8 months, the Albanian Power Corporation (KESH) has started to purchase electricity from abroad.

With two open auctions held between July 15-23, the total amount purchased reaches 51,000 Megawatts, for which 5.4 million euros have been spent.

At today’s prices, one megawatt costs 105 euros, a price that is about 6 times lower than last July when electricity was sold on the market for up to 600 euros per megawatt.

Albania has been a surplus producer of electricity since November when a large amount of rainfall occurred, raising the water levels in the Fierza hydropower plant to the highest historical quotas.

Even in the export market, KESH managed to recover part of the finances lost last year, but not entirely as prices quickly stabilized.

The country produced 7 million megawatts of electricity in 2022, while the demand was for 7.9 million, which was covered by purchases in the foreign market.

Therefore, the annual production was 22% lower than that of 2021 when domestic hydropower plants produced 8.9 million megawatts.

The decrease in production combined with higher purchases than sales in foreign markets caused the country to enter an energy crisis for the second time in the last 33 years.