Bulgaria Introduces Electricity Restrictions in Top Black Sea Resorts

Business » TOURISM | August 13, 2010, Friday // 20:51
Bulgaria: Bulgaria Introduces Electricity Restrictions in Top Black Sea Resorts The uncontrolled overdevelopment of Bulgaria's largest Black Sea resort Sunny Beach appears to be leading to chronic power grid failures. File photo

Some 300 000 tourists, mostly foreign, will be affected by electricity supply restrictions introduced Friday night along Bulgaria’s Southern Black Sea coast.

After a number of recent power outages in the sea resorts around the city of Burgas, the EVN power utility has made it clear that the record consumption of electricity in the region has been pushing to its limits the local power grid.

The introduced electricity supply restrictions will provide for one hour without electricity for every five hours with proper electricity supply. The measure will be in place until the power consumption in the region is reduced.

The restrictions will affect all coastal resorts and town north of the city of Burgas, including Bulgaia’s largest resort Sunny Beach, which features about 150 hotels.

Data from EVN has show that there was record electricity consumption along the Southern Black Sea coast Thursday night, which amounted to about 1/5 of the capacity of Bulgaria’s Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant.

Only in the Sunny Beach resort, the consumption amounted to 163 MW. The consumption in the packed hotel complexes there does not go below 80 MW even at night because of the constantly working air conditioning systems.

The decision to introduce electricity supply restrictions in some of Bulgaria’s most popular resorts has come after the Sunny Beach resort and the town of Pomorie saw a power outage for half an hour Thursday night, shortly after 8 pm, when most tourists in the packed complexes were having dinner.

Ivan Yotov, Director of Bulgaria's Electricity System Operator, a government company in charge of operational planning and control of the country's electricity supply, had announced Friday morning that there was a high probability of introducing scheduled restrictions of electricity supply in the Sunny Beach region as a result of the tremendous consumption of electric power.

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.

The EVN provider has promised to employ additional emergency teams in order to fix as quickly as possible any new power failures caused by the collapsing grid.

Bulgaria’s National Electric Company NEK has announced that it has started to replace the power lines along the Black Sea coast in order to avoid future blackouts. However, only the power grids along the northern part of coast will be replaced at first.

NEK officials have blamed the problems with the power supply of the Southern Black Sea coast not just on the excessive consumption caused by the hot weather but also on the overdevelopment of resorts such as Sunny Beach and the complete lack of strategy on part of the local owners and communities for the proper development and capacity of the power grid in the region.

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Tags: Sunny Beach, power outage, electricity, EVN, electricity supply restrictions, Burgas, Pomorie, foreign tourists, Black Sea coast

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