TIRANA, Jan. 17 – According to the Western Balkan Investment Fund’s recent ‘Investing in Clean Energy in the Western Balkans’ report, Albania lags behind in energy production and implementation of legislation on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. The report points out that Albania, a country dependant on hydroproduction, needs further progress in energy production compared to a majority of its neighbouring countries. Moreover, this dependency has led to serious consequences for the economy, as the country has been obliged to import energy due to the droughts of 2019.
“Albania has legislated the introduction of auctions for feed-in premiums for wind and solar but implementation is lagging behind,” the report states. The lack of implementation can also be observed in self-consumption energy legislation; Albania is the only country which has adopted rules on electricity self consumption but they have not been put into practice.
As regards to energy production the WBIF stated that “similar to other transition economies, the Western Balkans emerged from the socialist era with low energy productivity. Significant but uneven progress was made over the past 10 years and the gap with transition economies among EU Member States is moderate. Albania has somewhat lagged behind.” Bosnia and Herzegovina did not show any improvements, unlike Montenegro and North Macedonia which showed the most improvement in the region, at twice the average EU speed.
Additionally, the report noted that the majority of student dormitories in Albania are in poor conditions, “due to lack of resources for maintenance” and “provide substandard living conditions to students, which are not supporting academic excellence.” Moreover, there is a general lack of funds to improve heating systems due to their cost. As such, the German Government is in the process of providing energy efficient rehabilitation in the sector.
The December 2018 student protests urged the government to improve the conditions of these dormitories, but as of today issues persist.
