Skopje, 11 January 2023 (MIA) — Economy Minister Kreshnik Bekteshi said electricity bills dropped after all national energy production plants had been made operational in less than a year.

“For decades, some facilities hadn’t been able to produce electricity,” Minister Bekteshi said. “In less than a year, all facilities were made operational and are working to meet the needs of business and citizens.

“The sharp drop of the electricity price for small consumers shows this. We will discuss future prices in June, but as of today, I can tell you they will drop again,” Bekteshi said in response to reporter’s questions on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Power Plants of North Macedonia said the third bloc of the REK Bitola coal plant was back on the grid after it had been synced with the Macedonian energy system on Tuesday afternoon.

REK Bitola’s Bloc 3 is resuming operations a year after its transformer was damaged in a fire in November 2021. The new transformer was manufactured by Turkish company Astor. The transformer damaged in the fire, after being repaired in Serbia, will be kept at REK Bitola as a backup, the press release said.

With Bloc 3 resuming operations, REK Bitola is back to full capacity. The last time all three blocs of the plant were operating simultaneously was during the 2019–2020 heating season (February–March 2020). ad/ik/mr