CEDIS continues to record historically low levels of losses in the system, thereby achieving savings amounting to millions.
Indeed, following the results recorded in September and October, when the lowest level of losses ever measured in Montenegro’s electricity distribution system was achieved, November also saw a record-low level of 11.78 per cent, which is as much as 1.03 percentage points lower than in the same period of the previous year.
– Particularly since the beginning of the energy crisis, CEDIS has directed a significant share of its activities towards field operations aimed at curbing unauthorised consumption. Thanks to these activities, we have kept network losses at a record-low level for months, thereby also reducing the total amount of electricity required to cover losses. Thus, over the first 11 months of the current year, compared with 2021, we achieved savings of 18,350 MWh of electricity, worth approximately five million euros at the HUPX reference exchange for the period in question. CEDIS’s focus on reducing losses is the only constructive response amid unprecedented turbulence in the energy market, and this is precisely the direction in which we are working and achieving record results. – said Vaso Zeković, Head of the Metering Sector.
Vaso Zeković
When compared with the level of losses recorded from January to November 2020, the savings amount to 33,754 MWh of electricity, currently worth around nine million euros.
These figures take on even greater significance when it is taken into account that the loss rate of 11.47 per cent for the first 11 months of the current year is around 0.7 percentage points lower than in the same period of the previous year, despite an increase in electricity consumption of nearly four per cent.
If no action were taken to detect unauthorised activities on the network, the cost of procuring these quantities of electricity would be borne by the company and would not be charged to customers. Under current conditions, when electricity to cover losses is procured on the market at a significantly higher price than that paid by households and businesses, this would place an additional financial strain on the system.
– We believe it is important to emphasise that the cost of covering system losses borne by the company is largely a consequence of illegal construction, namely the connection of buildings in breach of regulations and the unplanned expansion of the network, which CEDIS could not influence. CEDIS therefore did not cause, nor could it prevent, illegal connections, and it cannot resolve the chaotic conditions in such settlements on its own, yet it suffers serious consequences. Above all, we mean the effort and extraordinary deployment of field crews, the expenditure of significant financial resources to cover losses, and the increased costs of maintaining the overloaded network in these areas, where the number of outages is also higher than in urbanised areas. In addition, investment works in these settlements are complex because of the lengthy resolution of property and legal matters. For all the reasons stated, we emphasise that addressing this deeply rooted and widespread problem requires systemic support from the prosecution and judicial authorities, as well as the police, which has so far been insufficient and inconsistent. – concluded Zeković.
