EVN, Statkraft sign 950 million euro power deal in Albania

TIRANA, Dec 19 – Austria’s EVN power utility and Norway’s Statkraft will both invest 950 million Euros to build three hydroelectric power stations in southeastern Albania.
The three plants on the river Devoll, which flows into the Adriatic south of the capital Tirana, would produce a combined 340 megawatts of power and generate 1,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually.
“The unique size of the complexity of the Devoll hydropower project as the biggest ever investment in Albania, and currently the biggest Hydro Power Project in Europe, justified our enormous efforts,” EVN’s chief executive officer Burkhard Hofer said.
EVN won a build-operate-transfer concession to exploit the whole potential of the Devoll river valley in January and had since been negotiating a contract with Albania.
Ragnvald Naero, Executive Vice President of Statkraft, said in a statement that the project would increase hydro power production in Albania by 20 percent, as well as create jobs and stimulate economic development.
In another project together with the other Austrian utility Verbund EVN is about to start building a 160 million Euros hydropower plant on the northern Drini river, the fourth on the river but first hydropower plant in Albania in 30 years.
Albania has been suffering chronic power shortages since it toppled communism in 1990 and demand kept growing steadily. Prime Minister Sali Berisha has been wooing foreign investors in the energy sector to boost output.
Albania’s power network fell into disrepair in the 1980s under the former communist regime and in the first years of transition to democracy in the early 1990s. Increased demands as the economy grew rapidly in the last 15 years mean frequent and lasting blackouts and a reliance on petrol generators in homes and businesses across the country.