Turkey's electricity import bill for the January-June period of 2018 decreased by 30.6 percent compared to the same period of 2017, according to Turkish Statistical Institute's (Turkstat) data Tuesday.
The data shows that Turkey paid nearly $30.16 million for electricity imports in the first half of 2018, compared to $43.47 million for the same period of 2017.
The amount of electricity imported between January and June reached nearly 780.86 million kilowatt-hours (kWh), compared to 808.62 million kWh in the first half of 2017.
Turkey bought electricity from five countries - Greece, Czechia, Bulgaria, Georgia and Azerbaijan, the data shows, out of which Bulgaria held the biggest share of electricity exports to Turkey.
Bulgaria bought nearly 588.93 million kWh of electricity out of a total amount of 780.86 million kWh in the first half of 2018. Turkey paid $22.23 million to its neighbor for these electricity imports over this period.
Georgia followed Bulgaria with 82.42 million kWh of imports for which Turkey paid nearly $2.91 million.
Azerbaijan, Greece and Czechia followed with 73.61, 19.85 and 16.35 million kWh of electricity imports, respectively. Turkey paid $3.54 million to Azerbaijan, $811.28 thousand to Greece and $652.95 thousand to Czechia for imports in the first half of the year.
Additionally, May saw the highest electricity imports in the January-June period in 2018 when Turkey imported 232.66 million kWh of electricity and paid $9.34 million.
By Ebru Sengul
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr