Fuelled by good water supply from the river Drin, HPP Ashta recorded a total production of clean and domestic electricity of 267 GWh, marking a surplus of 11 percent compared to the statistical average yearly production of 242 GWh.
TIRANA, May 26 – One year after the launch of Albania’s biggest concessionary hydro power plant of Ashta in northern Albania by an Austrian joint venture, the biggest HPP project in the past two decades of Albania’s transition to a market economy reports a successful operational year with a generation of 267 GWH of clean and domestic electricity.
The Ashta HPP, a Euro 200 million by Austria’s Verbund and EVN, was completed in March 2013 after a construction period of less than three years. “Since that time HPP Ashta recorded a total production of clean and domestic electricity of 267 GWh, marking a surplus of 11 percent compared to the statistical average yearly production of 242 GWh. The operation was impacted by the good water supply of the river Drin,” the company said in a statement.
“2013 has been a particularly positive year for HPP Ashta: the testing period ended by the end of March, what led to the regular supply to KESH power corporation by April 1st 2014 and granting of the usage permit on September 6th 2013.”
HPP Ashta is the largest hydropower plant in the world using 90 hydro matrix turbines. The matrix technology – based on a number of small turbines roughly the size of a telephone box – enables a particularly efficient utilization of hydropower and was specifically designed for the low heads available in this area.
The 48-MW run-of-river project, the fourth largest hydropower plant on the northern River Drin cascade and the biggest HPP project during the past 20 years, provides electricity for 100,000 Albanian households.
The project has been implemented by “Energji Ashta,” a 50/50 joint venture between Austria’s Verbund and EVN which constructed a world innovation in Albania: the largest matrix power plant using small turbines. The Ashta HPP, built under a 35-year concession deal is located in northern Albania, in Bushat village, Shkodra. Some 200 people were involved in the implementation of the project which started in March 2010.
The river Drin is currently used by a chain of HPPs. The Ashta HPP is the last in this chain and located below Vau i Dej쳠HPP, about 50 km from the outflow of river Drin in the Adriatic Sea.
The investment is key to Albania’s domestic electricity generation which is 100 percent hydro dependent.
