Epress.am News from Armenia
Electric Networks of Armenia, a subsidiary of the Russian company Inter RAO UES, preferred to purchase more expensive electricity, and now it's unloading that burden on Armenian consumers, reports local daily Zhoghovurd.
The newspaper notes that the main official reason for raising the electricity rates in Armenia is that Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) had a financial gap to fill, since the power plant ceased operations for 88 days more than expected last year, and ENA was forced to fill the gap by purchasing electricity from the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant at 49.1 AMD per kWh, suffering a loss of 16.6 billion AMD as a result.
The newspaper, however, claims that ENA could've purchased electricity not from Hrazdan TPP, which runs on Russian gas, but from Yerevan TPP at 29.1 AMD per kWh, which would be half as expensive as it runs on Iranian gas.
"But they didn't do that. And as a result, the Russian Inter RAO UES subsidiary, giving preference to Hrazdan TPP running on Russian gas, through internal agreement, simply artificially increased the volume of Russian gas consumption in Armenia, ensuring profits for Gazprom," reports the paper.