Ashta hydropower plant made fully operational

TIRANA, Sept. 18 – Three months after its successful testing, the Ashta hydropower plant, a Euro 200 million investment by Austria’s Verbund and EVN has been made fully operational. 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.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony this week, Prime Minister Sali Berisha described the new hydropower plant as milestone in Albania’s energy system, and an important step toward the project “Albania, a superpower of renewable energy in the region” and “sustainable development.’ Some 120 concession contracts to build 332 HPPs with a capacity of 1,400 MW, worth Euro 2.4 billion have been signed to achieve this goal, said Berisha.
“The use of advanced technology matrix turbines makes the Ashta HPP an environmental novelty,” added Berisha.
Austrian Parliament Speaker Barbara Prammer who also participated in the inauguration ceremony, described the event as day of friendship between Austria and Albania.
“This is a celebration of friendship between Austria and Albania and measures the confidence of Austrian investors in your country. What urged me to come, are the old links between Austria and Albania and what I mostly care about is that environment protection stands in this development. Renewable energy is very important to us and this is the reason I have come. I am convinced this has been excellent cooperation and will continue,” said Prammer.
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 project features the Hydromatrix technology, a trademarked product of Andritz Hydro, employing about 90 small turbine-generators installed in modules.
By means of the particularly efficient and innovative matrix technology, 240 million kilowatt hours of electricity are to be generated starting at the end of 2012. With that, 100,000 Albanian households will be supplied with electricity from clean hydropower.
The river Drin is currently used by a chain of HPPs. The planned Ashta HPP will be 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% hydro dependent. Austria’s EVN and Verbund are also competing separately along with France’s CNR to take over four small and medium-sized HPPs government intends to privatize.
Austria’s EVN and Norway’s Statkraft are also developing a Euro 1 billion project on the Devoll river, southeastern Albania under a concession contract. This project is currently one of the largest in Europe and will increase the total hydropower production in Albania with 20 percent. The project consists of developing, planning, constructing and operating three hydropower plants along the Devoll river with an installed capacity of approx. 280 MW.
Bank of Albania data rank Austrian companies as the third biggest foreign investors in Albania with Euro 362 million, mainly in the banking and energy sector.