Turkey's electricity import bill down 33% in 2018

By Ebru Sengul

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's electricity import bill in 2018 decreased by 33 percent compared to the previous year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat) data Monday.

The data shows that Turkey paid nearly $57.03 million for electricity imports in 2018, compared to $85.50 million for 2017.

The amount of electricity imported last year reached nearly 1.38 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), compared to 1.66 billion kWh in 2017.

Turkey bought electricity from five countries - Greece, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Georgia and Azerbaijan, the data shows, out of which Bulgaria held the biggest share of electricity exports to Turkey.

Turkey bought nearly 1.01 billion kWh of electricity from Bulgaria out of a total amount of 1.38 billion kWh in 2018 paying $42.20 million to its neighbor.

Georgia followed Bulgaria with 239.95 million kWh of imports for which Turkey paid nearly $8.58 million.

Azerbaijan, Greece and the Czech Republic followed with 73.61, 35.71 and 24.14 million kWh of electricity imports, respectively. Turkey paid $3.54 million to Azerbaijan, $1.62 million to Greece and $1.05 million to the Czech Republic for imports last year.

Additionally, May saw the highest electricity imports in 2018 when Turkey imported 232.66 million kWh of electricity and paid $9.34 million.