In February 2017, Georgia experienced the largest gap between generation and consumption in the last decade. This was followed by an even greater gap in March 2017. The size of those gaps, and the fact that the historical trend was suggesting an increase in the electricity gap, prompted policy proposals emphasizing the need to encourage investments in power generation.

In March 2018, Georgian power plants generated 997 mln. KWh of electricity. This corresponds to a 35% increase in total generation, compared to the previous year (in 2017, total generation in March was 740.7 mln. kWh). The increase in generation on a yearly basis comes from an increase in both hydro power generation and thermal power generation.

Back in 1991, I attended a big “Does Socialism Have a Future?” conference hosted by my alma mater, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The session I remember most vividly featured a Hungarian dissident, a poet, ridiculing ineffective communist propaganda. “Communists”, he told a sympathetic audience, “tried to convince us that jeans can cause impotence in young males and that Coca Cola is bad for people’s health”.

I believe we all are bound by the notion that technology is the thing. We might be convinced it’s a sign of progress. Those very clever engineers have finally saved humanity, not just by envisioning what will save the masses from wasting their minutes and seconds, but they also help to propel all sorts of time-saving devices. There are, of course, good reasons to argue for how important technological advances are.

In February 2018, Georgian power plants generated 934 mln. KWh of electricity. This corresponds to a 15% increase in total generation, compared to the previous year (in 2017, total generation in January was 809.2 mln. kWh). The increase in generation on a yearly basis comes from an increase in wind and hydro power generation.