Bulgaria faced another day of record low temperature as arctic freeze gripped the country, pushing up power consumption to all-time highs.
Temperatures on Wednesday morning dropped for a second day to minus 29 degrees Celsius in Knezha, a town in northern Bulgaria, the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology reported. All-time lows were registered in thirteen locations across the country on Wednesday morning and in fifteen locations a day earlier.
Electricity consumption at 8 p.m. on Tuesday totalled 7,340 megawatts, beating the previous record set an hour earlier, energy minister Traicho Traikov told bTV. Bulgaria has a total installed capacity of about 9,000 megawatts, he added.
Heating utility Toplofikatsia Sofia said its facilities were operating at full capacity.
Main roads across the country remain open, according to the roads administration.
Strong northwesterly wind with a speed of 14 m/sec closed the Black Sea port of Varna at 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, state-run Bulgarian News Agency reported. The port reopened in the late afternoon.