Albania approves hydropower plants in Devoll River

TIRANA, Jan 22 – The Albanian government approved on Wednesday a deal with two companies to build three hydro- power plants in southeastern Albanian river of Devoll.
Austria’s EVN utility and Norway’s Statkraft will invest 950 million Euros to build three power plants on the river Devoll.
The three plants will have a combined capacity of 340 megawatts of power and generate 1,000 gigawatt- hours of electricity annually. During the last years, Albania has been hit by an acute energy crisis, with regular power cuts throughout the country, including Tirana.
More than 90 percent of Albania’s domestically-produced electricity is generated by hydro-power plants, which are badly affected by droughts. Prime Minister Sali Berisha considered the project as the biggest of its kind in Europe at this moment, and repeated that his vision was to turn the tiny Balkan country into a small electricity producer superpower in the region.
“We approve the contract between the Energy Ministry and EVN AG, Statkraft AS and Devoll Hydropower Sha (Holding) as co-owners of the concession to build, operate and transfer the hydropower project on the Devoll River,” the government said.
EVN and Statkraft, which each have a 50 percent share in the venture, will build three peak-load hydropower power plants over eight years.
EVN and Statkraft negotiated a contract with Albania for more about a year since they won a build-operate-transfer concession for 35 years, or until the project reaches 59 TWh נor 59,000 GWh נto exploit the whole potential of the Devoll river valley. (Tirana Times Staff)