Talk:Energy in Bulgaria

Energy output in 2006
Does anyone have the figures for the last year? Mentatus 07:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You can get the most accurate figures from the national power grid websites (check for anual reports). Don't get statistics from other sources (CIA World Factbook, or National Statistics Institutes) because they tend to be 'corrected', always go straight to the source. Furthermore, take into consideration that more relevant information that energy production/capita is always misleading. Energy requirements of different countries are different due to climate, average energy efficiency of houses (thermal insulation, etc.), and source of heating. In some countries the heating is mostly done on private, in house gas powered plants, in others solar energy is used, and in some electricity is used. Some countries require air-conditioning in the summer (Turkey, Greece), while others mostly don't (Germany and Austria are good examples).

Regarding the export values, make sure to take into account that export values are again misleading if you don't use the average daily export/import balance. Romania for example, imports over a day an average of 200MWh while it exports 800MWh (see the reports listed below), thus giving a balance of 600MWh of export. Another factor for the maturity of a network is the frequency variation. And a final important factor is the distribution of primary power resources (fosil, nuclear, hidro, wind, solar, etc), or, if you want, carbon-neutral vs. carbon producing, or, renewable vs. non-renewable. Don't forget to also compare the average price per MWh. Here is the list of websites for some of the national power grids as far as I know. I can get more information for the Romanian if you need.


 * Albania KESH www.kesh.com.al
 * Austria VERBUND Austrian Power Grid www.verbund.at
 * Belgium Elia www.elia.be
 * Bulgaria NEK www.nek.bg
 * Czech Republic CEPS www.ceps.cz
 * Croatia HEP-Hrvatska Elektroprivreda www.hep.hr
 * France RTE www.rte-france.com
 * Germany RWE www.rwe.de
 * Germany Vattenfall Europe Transmission GmbH www.vattenfall.de
 * Greece HTSO www.desmie.gr
 * Hungary MAVIR www.mavir.hu
 * Hungary MVM www.mvm.hu
 * Italy GRTN www.grtn.it
 * Montenegro EPCG www.epcg.cg.yu
 * Polonia PSE-Operator SA www.pse-operator.pl
 * Romania - Transelectrica - http://www.transelectrica.ro/publicatii.php
 * Serbia EKC Belgrade www.ekc-ltd.com
 * Slovenia ELES Elektro-Slovenia www.eles.si
 * Slovacia SEPS www.sepsas.sk
 * Turkey TEIAS www.teias.gov.tr
 * United Kingdom NGC www.nationalgrid.com/uk —Preceding unsigned comment added by D3vi1 (talk • contribs) 16:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Here it is --Gligan 11:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Good, then we have the following table (sorted by energy production per capita in descending order):

I'll adapt the article accordingly. Mentatus 13:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * In fact Bulgaria is not and has never been second in Eastern Europe, because Chzech Republic, Slovakia and Russia have always produced more electricity par capita. It a stupid mistake of mine (Bulgaria is second on the Balkans after Slovenia). Thank you for fixing this. --Gligan 15:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Моля. Поздрави, Mentatus 15:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Unexplained edits
Hello @Rambovkata - thanks for editing this article but please could you explain the purpose of your edits. I think you may have removed some info I added but I don't understand why as you have not commented any of your edits except the first few. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:34, 14 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi, so yeah I removed quite a few things from the article mostly because of outdated information regarding electricity production as well as updated policy by the Bulgarian government. Now that you reminded me to open the article I see it has been edited by another user who has basically made my edits irrelevant. Literally the first section is data from 2020. I do not understand why old information is being posted, considering data from this year regarding the energy sector is being posted by several news outlets on a monthly basis.
 * Thank you. Rambovkata (talk) 11:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think full year stats for 2022 would be enough as 2023 has not finished yet. For info official CO2 stats for 2021 are available in English at https://unfccc.int/reports?f%5B0%5D=corporate_author%3A78 Chidgk1 (talk) 18:18, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Electricity generation has its own article
@Ânes-pur-sàng@Rambovkata

Suggest you put less detail about electricity here. I had put an excerpt from the main article Electricity sector in Bulgaria but not sure why the excerpt was removed. Mostly I edit articles about Turkey and just occasionally dabble in neighboring countries. For Turkey (and many other countries) we have energy in Turkey and electricity sector in Turkey which you could use as examples if you really wanted to get into the subject for Bulgaria if you have time Chidgk1 (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I don't remember the electricity part of this article and cannot see how to view it now. I have been working my way around maybe 15 "Energy in XXXX" articles in Europe as they were almost all 5+ years out of date. Some have an electricity section, some don't, my personal feeling is that electricity is not a source of power, it is a by-product of a power source so have been concentrating the articles on original sources of power and also showing the 2030 targets and what the country is doing to meet the targets. In a number of articles I have left electricity at the bottom of the article with other sundry sections. Sorry if I mucked up your work, if you can recover it, please feel free to return it to the article, or write something new. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 10:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Rambovkata I see you removed the excerpt of the electricity article but I don't understand why Chidgk1 (talk) 16:25, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Edits on Energy of Bulgaria
The following I copy from the talk page of @User:Chidgk1, because maybe it is better the discussion to be here:

"With all due respect, please refrain to remove sources. Both are well founded and respected. You may consider them old, but in their core, they are not. From these, I cite fundamental issues, not some statistics that change over the years. Therefore, I removed all of your recent edits today, because they lack elementary respect. You may reenter the constructive parts. And also, do not remove information, simply because it may also be available in other articles. It is relevant for that one too. If you wish to do such changes, first discuss the all the talk page. Regards, --Gligan (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2024 (UTC)"

And now, I continue with some thoughts, based on this user's edits and edit summaries. First, I have noticed in some previous edits of Chidgk1 the very (in my opinion) unpleasant habit to place "citation needed" and then to remove the parts of text requiring the citation one or two days later. In an article not so frequently visited that is an overreach. Enough time must be given to provide sources. Second, the even more unpleasant habit to unilaterally decide what information is worth staying in the article. Yes, some information may also be relevant in the articles about geography, geology, electricity production, economy, etc., but they "are" relevant in this one too. Further, you may not think that the amount of coal reserves are interesting to the readers, but I do think they are. I as a reader would love if was possible to open a Wikipedia page and find that information any coal basin in every country. Especially in a relevant article. Then, the figures - this is the article where precise figures are relevant; approximated figures may be used in wider scope articles, like economy of Bulgaria, etc. I respect the constructive edits, the copyediting and the improvement that Chidgk1 has done, but the above cited issued are none of those.

In my revert of today, I have unfortunately also removed some constructive elements of Chidgk1's edits from this date, but I found disrespectful way they were done - by unilaterally deleting sources and information - quite offensive to my good intention to try to improve the article.

In conclusion, out of elementary respect to other editors and their contributions, I would like to kindly ask Chidgk1 not to remove information because "he" thinks is irrelevant and not to remove sources because he thinks are "probably not useful" without discussion on the talk page. --Gligan (talk) 19:46, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @GliganIf I removed info tagged uncited after only a couple of days that was a mistake sorry as I normally leave the tags for weeks or months to give other editors a chance to cite. Re other issues with this article I will start separate talk page sections so you and other editors can suggest how it should be changed. I am glad you are improving the article as it has been neglected for quite a while. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:23, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you. --Gligan (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

What info should be in which articles?
As there are articles on Electricity sector in Bulgaria and on several electricity generation methods, such as Nuclear power in Bulgaria, how should energy info be spread across the articles?

I understand that there is no electricity from geothermal, so if that is right I think geothermal should remain here. However I think a lot of the electricity details should be moved to other articles with just an overview of important electricity info here. This could perhaps be done using excerpts.

What do you all think?

Chidgk1 (talk) 10:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * In my opinion it is best to have one or two short paragraphs about the different electricity generation subsectors, such as the length of those currently in solar and hydroelectric power. This way the article gains some substance and the subsections are not a one line paragraph. Unfortunately, as of now the main articles about the Electricity sector in Bulgaria and all its subsectors are far from being complete but the (hopeful) perspective for the future is for each of them to be enriched and enlarged. Therefore, a two-three sentence overview staying in this article, Energy in Bulgaria, is reasonable. Of course, this article need further work - sections on the energy policy, adding more substance on transit, heating, future vision, etc. but that will come with time. This is why may be at present the article seems a bit unbalanced in favour of the electricity sector. --Gligan (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Personally I like using excerpts but I know some other editors are very against them. What do you think about excerpting the lead of the electricity article into here? Chidgk1 (talk) 18:10, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Possible confusion between energy and electricity
The statement that 23.3% of ENERGY is from renewables seems to contradict the One World in Data graph. I cannot read Bulgarian so the sources are hard for me to check. Many journalists in many countries confuse energy and electricity - so perhaps that has happened here? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:46, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * This statement comes from a bulletin by the Ministry of Energy and is not written by journalists. It is taken from the table on page 2. The first row of the table is, in direct translation from Bulgarian, "primary energy production" and in the article the latest figure is given, for the year 2020. The percentage comes from the fourth row of the table, which is "share of the renewable energy in the gross final consumption of energy". I am not certain how they have figured that percentage and the methodology is not cited in the bulletin. --Gligan (talk) 17:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Now, there is fruit in having a constructive discussion. After a quick search of the methodology used by the National Statistics Institute (from where the date for the bulletin comes), I have found it, unfortunately in Bulgarian and also I have found a breakdown for the renewable primary energy production for 2022 again in Bulgarian only. According to the table in the second link, the largest source for renewable primary energy comes from solid biofuels (first row, last column) - 1.588 million tonnes of oil equivalent of a total of 2.800. That, it seems, explains the unusually high percentage. --Gligan (talk) 17:22, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I see so perhaps the data sources used by One World in Data estimated solid biofuels wrong in 2020, maybe due to pandemic quirks of data collection. Presumably ‘solid biofuels’ is mostly residential heating of individual dwellings by burning wood? And presumably this will decrease over time as people become more aware of the health risks of smoke in homes. So I guess the official and OWID stats will converge because burning of wood (for example wood pellets like at Drax Power Station) for district heating and suchlike will be much easier to account because you are adding up a smaller number of burning places if you see what I mean. So do you know the official percentage for 2022? Chidgk1 (talk) 17:43, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The OWID graph shows roughly 10% to 15% energy from renewables in 2022 I see. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:51, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah so if I understand right the official figures are for PRODUCTION whereas the OWID figures are for CONSUMPTION. That might explain the difference. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:06, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * According to this table, the total primary energy production for 2022 is 13.157 million tonnes of oil equivalent, and of them 2.800 are from renewable sources. The table does not provide percentages, but after calculation, the percentage is around 21.3%.--Gligan (talk) 18:13, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * As no heat is exported the export of electricity might account for the difference, but I cannot write that in the article as it is just my guess - I don’t have a cite Chidgk1 (talk) 19:03, 12 January 2024 (UTC)