First wind farm in Albania to be financed by Italian company

TIRANA, Jan.3 – Italian company Italgest, plans to invest 180 million euro ($238.1 million) in a wind farm for Albania. The company website announced that the wind farm is designed to be in Durres, on the Adriatic Sea. It will have 75 turbines with a total generating capacity of more than 150 megawatts. The project is expected to be approved by Albanian authorities this June while production is due to begin in 2009. The company expects 25 million euro in sales for the first year of operations. The wind farm will be the first of its kind in Albania. The country is suffering power cuts despite continuous promises form the government that a crisis would be avoided. Power cuts have been up to six hours a day in the capital Tirana and up to 13 hours in provincial cities. Consumers in rural areas have suffered the worst, with shortages up to 20.5 hours. The country’s power utility KESH has outdated energy utilities, unable to produce enough electricity to meet domestic demand. It has tried to meet the shortages with imports and renewable energy is expected to reduce its dependence on these. Unfavorable weather conditions are worsening the situation with the Fierza Lake near its dead point.
Italgest is active in energy, real estate, information and communications technology (ICT) and the services sector. It has 7.8 percent of shares in Italian renewable energy company Actelios. Currently it is building two wind farms and an 11 megawatt solar centre in the southern region of Puglia.