Tartu Signs More Favorable Power Contract
At the start of next year, the City of Tartu will begin buying power at market rates, a success since in the current contract the city was stuck with above-market rates when Elektrum turned out to be the only bidder in its tender last year.
Elektrum will continue to be the supplier in 2014, but there were a total of three and four bidders in the two parts of the tender this year, reported uudised.err.ee.
Those two parts were for Tartu's street lights, with an estimated annual consumption of 7,000 megawatt-hours; and all public establishments, together consuming an estimated 10,900 megawatt-hours per year.
Elektrum bid successfully on margins with a rate of 0.68 euros per megawatt-hour.
The city has signed a framework agreement with Elektrum while each establishment will have to sign separate contracts.
The current contract was a scandal, leading to an unsuccessful no confidence vote against Tartu Mayor Urmas Kruuse last April. The two opposition parties, the Center Party and the Social Democrats, had accused the Reform-IRL coalition of rushing into signing an electricity contract last year which critics claimed led to the most expensive prices in the country.