Economy Minister: Georgia has “all conditions” to be net electricity exporter

Georgian Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili on Tuesday said the country had “all conditions” to be a net exporter of electricity, adding the Government’s “main goal” was to ensure export from local generation to the European Union.

Commenting on the Black Sea submarine cable project - intended to connect the grids of the South Caucasus and European Union member states - Davitashvili said the initiative was a “multibillion-dollar project” implementation of which would take “many years”.

Thus investing in it makes sense if we have more generation of electricity in the country, otherwise the investment would not be justified. According to all our forecasts, Georgia will be able to produce additional electricity from renewable sources in the future, which will be intended for export”, he said.

The Minister added generation this year had hit a “record high” of more than 13 billion kWh. 

The ongoing projects managed by the Ministry, together with the private sector, and the memorandums signed with the developers allow us to generate even more”, the official also said. 

Davitashvili noted despite an increase in domestic consumption, the number was still under the volume of generation, creating export potential for energy.

That is exactly why we are diversifying [export markets]. Today, the main export market is Turkey, which is an important market [...] but the more diversified we are, the more important it is for energy”, he said.

The Minister highlighted “significant investments” were going to be made “in the coming years” to develop transmission infrastructure and “fully absorb the energy potential”.