NEK's annual investment plan will allocate funds for replacement and maintenance of high-risk installations, said Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Traicho Traikov on Saturday, quoted by his Ministry in a press release.

Traikov visited the village of Prisseltsi, Varna Region, where the 110-kilovolt Galatea power line went down on Thursday evening. The power line was reconnected to the power grid at 13:40 hrs on Saturday and the restricted supply plan was called off.

After a meeting with representatives of the hospitality industry in the Sunny Beach resort, Traikov said that the tourists' discontent and hotel managers' concerns are understandable. During the repair works on Traikov's order a restricted supply plan was put into place. Forty police officers of the police department in Nessebar, Bourgas gendarmerie and special forces were dispatched to the Sunny Beach resort.

Although the emergency teams had done an excellent job, the Minister said that the power line is over 35 years old against a service life of 30 years. According to Traikov, over the past ten years no investments have been made in the power distribution network.

The Galatea power line went down at 20:33 hrs on July 22. A second power line, the 110-kilovolt Aheloi, went down on July 23. The outage in both cases was due to an attempted cable theft.

Source: BTA