Balkans' new love for air conditioning strains grid as temperatures soar
By Fatos Bytyci and Ivana Sekularac
PRISTINA/BELGRADE, Aug 14 (Reuters) -Raba Peci never wanted air conditioning - the cold air made people sick, she thought. Then this year a string of heatwaves in her town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo finally changed her mind.
"This summer is very hot and unbearable and that's why we decided to buy one now," she said as she prepared Turkish coffee for two workers who were installing a new unit in her home. Her next door neighbour already had two put in.
Many in the Balkans region of central Europe have long mistrusted artificial cooling methods. In some areas, away from the tourist hot spots, people even avoid chilled drinks and ice cream for fear of catching a cold.
Blistering summer temperatures like the ones seen this week are altering those attitudes, analysts say and data show. That is good news for air conditioning suppliers.
But it is raising concerns about the impact of growing consumption on a fragile power grid.
"Air conditioning is a challenge for us because we always had high consumption during winter and now we have a similar situation during summer," Margarita Rashiti, a spokesperson for Kosovo energy supplier Kesco, said.
On July 16 the company issued a warning to customers to limit power consumption because it was having to import one million euros' worth of power per day from its neighbours.
One month earlier, a spike in consumption during a heatwave likely helped trigger a major power outage across Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania and most of Croatia's coast, disrupting businesses and shutting down traffic lights.
"The stress that the power grids had already received due to the prolonged heatwave in the region contributed to the occurrence of this damage," the head of the Greek transmission operator IPTO, Manos Manousakis, said at the time.
KEEPING COOL
Long term, countries will need to strengthen their grids and increase domestic renewables output, experts say.
Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia rely on coal for electricity production. Albania uses hydropower but relies on imports when rainfall dips in summer.
"This is a new situation, heavy network load in summer months. The transport network is old, the capacities are old," Mirza Kusljugic of the Regional Center for Sustainable Transition said.
Kosovo has seen a 400% increase in air conditioning unit imports in the past five years, customs data show. Once the preserve of banks and businesses, they now hum from apartment buildings across the capital Pristina.
"We are having enormous number of requests. We are even having requests to install up to four units in one house," said Rinor Gashi, a manager at local Interplast Group who this year doubled the number of crews to meet soaring demand.
For years Markovic Koviljka, an 86-year old pensioner in Belgrade, avoided air conditioning in her apartment on the 16th floor in one of the city's landmark skyscrapers.
But this summer, as the heatwaves kept coming and July was the hottest in 70 years, she asked her daughter to buy her a unit.
"I do not like air conditioning, it consumes too much electricity," she said. "However, I cannot remember such high temperatures, and I remember a lot."
Additional reporting by Ognen Teofilovski in Skopje and Angeliki Koutantou in Athens; Editing by Edward McAllister and Andrew Heavens
Dernières actualités
Avertissement : Les entités de XM Group proposent à notre plateforme de trading en ligne un service d'exécution uniquement, autorisant une personne à consulter et/ou à utiliser le contenu disponible sur ou via le site internet, qui n'a pas pour but de modifier ou d'élargir cette situation. De tels accès et utilisation sont toujours soumis aux : (i) Conditions générales ; (ii) Avertissements sur les risques et (iii) Avertissement complet. Un tel contenu n'est par conséquent fourni que pour information générale. En particulier, sachez que les contenus de notre plateforme de trading en ligne ne sont ni une sollicitation ni une offre de participation à toute transaction sur les marchés financiers. Le trading sur les marchés financiers implique un niveau significatif de risques pour votre capital.
Tout le matériel publié dans notre Centre de trading en ligne est destiné à des fins de formation / d'information uniquement et ne contient pas – et ne doit pas être considéré comme contenant – des conseils et recommandations en matière de finance, de fiscalité des investissements ou de trading, ou un enregistrement de nos prix de trading ou une offre, une sollicitation, une transaction à propos de tout instrument financier ou bien des promotions financières non sollicitées à votre égard.
Tout contenu tiers, de même que le contenu préparé par XM, tels que les opinions, actualités, études, analyses, prix, autres informations ou liens vers des sites tiers contenus sur ce site internet sont fournis "tels quels", comme commentaires généraux sur le marché et ne constituent pas des conseils en investissement. Dans la mesure où tout contenu est considéré comme de la recherche en investissement, vous devez noter et accepter que le contenu n'a pas été conçu ni préparé conformément aux exigences légales visant à promouvoir l'indépendance de la recherche en investissement et, en tant que tel, il serait considéré comme une communication marketing selon les lois et réglementations applicables. Veuillez vous assurer que vous avez lu et compris notre Avis sur la recherche en investissement non indépendante et notre avertissement sur les risques concernant les informations susdites, qui peuvent consultés ici.
