Utility service regulators yesterday kept unchanged the price of electricity for Armenian households despite the increased cost of Russian natural gas delivered to the country. Robert Nazaryan, the PSRC chairman, said Armenia can sustain such a price thanks to the upcoming launch of a new and much more efficient unit at a major thermal-power plant located in Yerevan. Nazarian also noted the fact that it will mainly run on gas supplied from neighboring Iran. With natural gas used for generating roughly one-third of Armenia’s electricity, the move raised fears of a knock-on effect on energy fees that were already raised almost a year ago. However, the PSRC sanctioned only a modest rise in the cost of electricity supplied to industrial enterprises. According to the commission the Hrazdan thermal facility uses Russian gas and is owned by a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled Unified Energy Systems power utility. According to that about 5 kilowatt electrical power will be exposed from 1 cubic meter of gas from Iran and the rest will be directed to the system with inexpensive prices.
