The coal output at Maritsa East Mines continues despite the heavy winter weather conditions in Bulgaria. The mines are keeping a greater than planned output and steady coal supply to the thermal power stations in the East Maritsa basin in order to compensate for the miner’s strike which forced the power plants to use their reserves, BNR reported. Currently some shortage of coal was declared only by AES Galabovo TPP, which is currently operating at full capacity. The AES station disposes of 120 – 130 tonnes of coal at storage.

 

State-operated Maritsa East 2 power station continues operating only 6 of its 8 units. During the miner’s strike coal from the Pernik basin was experimentally burned at its energy unit 8, which remains offline.

 

As temperatures in Bulgaria dropped drastically during the last couple of days, energy utilities reported higher electricity consumption. CEZ Bulgaria reported that electricity consumption in North-west Bulgaria yesterday surpassed that during Christmas day.

 

The district heating utility in Sofia also recorded a constant rise in the consumption since the weekend.

 

Power utilities in the entire country had to deal with blackouts and severed power lines due to blizzards, especially in North-Eastern Bulgaria.