Title: Power Crisis in Gabrovo Municipality: Mayor Demands Action
In a recent press conference, Mayor of Gabrovo, Tanya Hristova, expressed her outrage at the ongoing power outages affecting tens of settlements in the municipality. Following a meeting with Bulgaria‘s Minister of Energy, Vladimir Malinov, the mayor demanded stricter control and investment in the energy distribution network.
"Three days without power for the entire municipality, including villages, is unacceptable," Hristova declared. She attributed the crises to poor condition of the electricity grid and emphasized the need for greater involvement of local governments in approving and coordinating energy companies’ investment plans.
Hristova stressed the importance of ensuring the network’s stability before each winter season, stating that such widespread outages hadn’t occurred in the last 10-15 years. She also called for compensations for businesses affected by the outages and urged for modernizing the grid to meet contemporary standards, including underground cabling to ensure reliability during winter.
The mayor reported that around 30 settlements and six to eight city districts were still without power, with the situation remaining dynamic. She criticized the energy regulating body, ERC, for not providing timely support, which could have expedited the resolution of the issues. Although emergency measures were taken to keep roads passable and provide assistance, Hristova ruled out declaring a state of emergency.
Earlier today, Gabrovo residents took to the streets in a spontaneous protest, demanding continuous and quality power supply to their homes. The protest was sparked by frequent power cuts, with many residents left without electricity on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
The outages have frustrated residents, with one protester commenting, "We’ve had enough of being left in the dark during the holidays. We deserve reliable power supply." Another resident added, "Our demand is simple: fix the power grid and keep the lights on."