Due to the emergency outage of the Imereti power transmission line and the Enguri hydropower plant, electricity was not supplied to Tbilisi City and parts of the regions for one hour yesterday.
Experts say that in conditions when the country does not have additional generating facilities and transmission networks also need appropriate capacities, the country is not insured against such cases.
Mariam Chakhvashvili, senior analyst at Galt & Taggart notes, that Imereti line is the weakest point of Georgian transition line, because it transmits electricity from Enguri HPP, which is consumed by Eastern Georgia.
“When the whole generation comes from Enguri and not from the facilities, which are located in the Eastern Georgia, then this line is loaded. In general, the more diversified is our supply, the less risk of outage we have. Delivery should be diversified not only by sources (hydro, wind, solar), but also by the station’s themselves”, - Mairam Chakhvashvili said.
According to Chakhvashvili, Enguri HPP is the most powerful station and about 30% accounts for it, so shutting down the Enguri HPP is already problematic.
In addition, she notes, that today the country does not have the necessary infrastructural capacities to import.
"When you make imports from different countries, you are limited by at least one or two transmission lines. If there is an outage, you must be prepared to import or generate that amount locally. If we import electricity from Russia, we have one transition line there and we become dependent on one line and then the internal networks become quite congested. The line has its limit, this limit is also such that if the line is disconnected, you should always know what you are doing at this time," Chakhvashvili said.
According to ESCO statistics, electricity consumption in Georgia increased by 5.1%. As of the document, 4.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity was supplied to the local economy in the 4 months of 2021, which was 220 million kilowatt hours more compared to the same period of 2020.
As for local production, it decreased by 19% and amounted to 2.98 billion kWh. The main reason for this decline was the shutdown of the country's largest hydropower plant Enguri, but after a three-month shutdown, the Enguri HPP resumed operations.
Electricity Imports Are Distributed As Follows:
• Russia – 1.037 billion KWH9 including 924 million kWH for Abkhazia);
• Azerbaijan – 499 million KWH;
• Turkey – 161.2 million KWH.
