Bulgaria's National Electric Company NEK is relying on “voluntary restrictions” of electricity consumption in order to save some of the country's top Black Sea resorts from power outages and officially scheduled electricity supply cuts.

NEK declared Saturday afternoon that despite media reports no formal scheduled restrictions of electricity supply have been introduced along the southern Bulgarian Black Sea coast, including the Sunny Beach resort.

The region north of the city of Burgas has been plagued with frequent power outages in the last three weeks as a result of the insufficient capacity of the local power lines to handle the over-consumption of electricity caused by the use of air-conditioners in the overcrowded resorts.

Sources from local power utility EVN and the Electricity System Operator (ESO), the state company monitoring the electricity supply, were cited Friday night as announcing that restrictions of the supply will be introduced because of the likelihood that the entire power grid in the region around Sunny Beach might collapse in an outage whose fixing will last for days.

Instead of introducing the respective restrictions, however, NEK said it had the promise of the union of hotel owners in Sunny Beach that they will do their best to reduce electricity consumption in the largest Bulgarian resort in the hours between 6 pm and 10 pm every evening. They have also called upon the tourists to contribute to these measures by saving electricity.

Local hotel owners have expressed skepticism about the effects of the proposed voluntary “electricity austerity measures” as they have no means of banning their hotel guests from turning on the air-conditioners in their rooms, and have few other ways of cutting electricity consumption.

Another highly controversial measure allowed by NEK is the turning on and off of the electricity supply in the villages and towns around the Sunny Beach resort if the consumption in the region starts nearing 200 MW. Thus, the town of Pomorie as well as the smaller resorts of Ravda and Irakli saw power outages at various times Friday evening.

Speaking live on the bTV channel, hotel owners have expressed their indignation at the existing situation including the fact that the energy authorities did not make it clear until later on Saturday whether formal electricity supply restrictions have been introduced.

Some owners have expressed an opinion in favor of scheduled restrictions in order to save them the unpleasant likelihood of ending up without power at any single moment.

“We cannot plan anything. The other day there was no electricity for one hour, yesterday there was no electricity for an hour and a half, and these happen at different times. They don't warn us, and don't tell us anything, our guests are left in the dark,” complained Elisaveta Toncheva, an owner of a hotel in Ravda.

NEK said that the problems with the electric supply of Sunny Beach, a resort which say dramatic overdevelopment in the last 15 years, can be solved by constructing a third power line in addition to the two already in existence. The new power line should be 30 km long, and will connected Sunny Beach with a major power line at the town of Aytos.

An ESO dispatcher told bTV that the problem with the excessive consumption of electricity in Sunny Beach was technically imported from the capital Sofia as thousands of Sofia residents left the city for vacations along the southern Black Sea coast.

According to NEK, the consumption of electricity in Sunny Beach grew by 15% compared with last summer, and has reached values of about 110% of the capacity of the regional power grid, which was saved from collapsing with a controlled power outage Friday night.

In July, a similar power outage that lasted almost 48 hours hit the Sunny Beach resort leading scores of foreign tourists to leave. The Bulgarian institutions have started an investigation of the blackout but have not announced their final findings yet even though at some point a minister revealed suspicions of “malicious damage.” The investigation is now focused on the state company NEK.

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