Crisis cell at government: consumption of electric energy continues to be fully provided in Moldova

Chisinau, 2 January /MOLDPRES/ - The consumption of electric energy in Moldova, for the date of 1 January 2025, was fully covered, without being necessary to activate failure contracts and/or unintentional flows. According to information made public by the government’s Crisis Cell, the consumption will be fully provided also for 2 January, the government’s communication department has reported.     

Starting from 1 January 2025, MGRES (Kuchurgan power station) has no longer been supplying electric energy to the right bank of Dniester and delivered only an insignificant volume of electric energy on 1 January between 00:00 and 01:00. Thus, the consumption is covered from domestic sources, such as heating stations from Chisinau and Balti, hydroelectric power station from Costesti, renewable sources, import under bilateral contracts with Romania and the purchasing from the exchange of electric energy from Romania, managed by the OPCOM stock company.    

For 1 January, the consumption was provided from the following sources:  

Import of electric energy (Romania) – 49.27 per cent
Termoelectrica stock company – 30.37 per cent
Renewable energy – 12.42 per cent
CET-Nord stock company – 5.61 per cent
State enterprise Costesti hydroelectric power station -1.46 per cent
MGRES – 0.5%
Co-generation power stations of sugar mills – 0.37 per cent.

No damages or incidents were recorded both in the natural gas sector and in the one of thermal energy on 1 January 2025. At the moment, the pressures in all segments of the transport system managed by the Vestmoldtransgaz Ltd company  are within the limits of the functional parameters. At the CET-Nord and Termoelectrica stock companies, the generation installations work as normal, according to the schedule planed.  

As for the left bank of Dniester, the covering of the consumption is to be made by the Kuchurgan power station, which started working on coal. The publicly available data shows that the Kuchurgan station has stocks of coal, which might cover the Transnistrian region’s entire consumption of electric energy for a period between 30 and 50 days. The available volume of coal is estimated at about 69.3 thousand tons, but its quality is unknown.     

On 1 January 2025, the profile enterprises from the Transnistrian region ceased the supply of natural gas, centralized heating and hot water to more settlements (boiler rooms, private houses, multi-storied blocks of flats and autonomous heating). At the same time, the household consumers from the settlements checked by the constitutional authorities, Varnița, Cocieri, Corjova, Coșnița, Doroțcaia, Molovata Nouă, Pârâta, Pohrebea, Vasilievca, Copanca, Hagimus și Fârlădeni, were also disconnected from the supply with, gas, heating and hot water.    

The Tiraspoltransgaz Company has earlier disconnected from the natural gas network more public institutions from the settlements controlled by the constitutional authorities, including schools, hospitals and cultural institutions. Also, the heating was ceased for the penitentiaries No 8 and No 12, the territorial subdivisions of the police and prosecutor’s office from Moldova, placed in the Bender city.    

As many as 131 schools, 147 kindergartens and 130 ‘’administrative’’ buildings are disconnected from the heating supply system. According to statements by the Tiraspol leaders, the present reserves will be enough to supply with natural gas the non-disconnected installations till 10 January in the north part of the region and till 20 January in the southern part of the region.   

The Moldovan authorities are looking for solutions to connect the institutions managed by the national public authorities to alternative energy resources, including through the setting of heating stations working on biomass. The police, medical services, emergency services are in alert and are ready to provide support to people who need it. The central authorities are permanently keeping in touch with the mayors of the settlements affected by disconnections for exchange of information on the situation in the region.  

The Russian giant Gazprom suspended the supply of natural gas to Moldovagaz as of 1 January 2025, 08:00, (Moscow time). Given the potential humanitarian crisis in the Transnistrian region because of the non-observance by Russia on the contract on deliveries of natural gas to the consumers on the left bank of Dniester, Moldova has been in an emergency state starting from 16 December 2024.