TIRANA, Sept. 21 – Norway’s Statkraft says it has delivered the first electricity to Albania’s distribution grid following the launch of its Banja hydropower plant in central Albania as part of Devoll hydropower project, one of the country’s largest foreign investment that is expected to increase the domestic wholly hydro-dependent electricity generation by 17 percent by next year.
“Late in the evening of August 31, the 7.2 MW Eco Flow Unit at Banja Hydropower Plant in Albania was successfully synchronized with the national grid for the first time. This marks the first electricity delivered to the Albanian grid from Statkraft’s Devoll Hydropower project,” the wholly state-owned Norwegian company said in a statement.
In addition to the small eco-flow turbine, Banja hydropower plant has two units of 33 MW each.
Statkraft says its second 184 MW Moglice hydropower plant is expected to come into operation by 2018. The two power plants are expected to produce about 700 GWh annually, increasing Albania’s electricity generation by 17 percent.
More than 2,000 workers were involved in the Banja HPP construction which started in mid-2013. The HPP has an installed capacity of 73 MW, covering an area of 14 km2 with a dam height of 80m and a reservoir with a total volume of 391 billion litres of water.
Preparations for the Banja HPP also included the construction of new roads and bridges as well as 15 replacement homes for the relocation of project affected households.
The Banja and Moglice HPPs, part of the €535 million Devoll Hydropower project, are being built on the Devoll River, about 70 km southeast of Tirana.
Devoll Hydropower, a €950 million project, was set up as a 50/50 joint venture between EVN and Statkraft after the two companies won in 2009 a 35-year concession to build three hydropower plants on the Devoll River. In 2013, Statkraft acquired EVN’s 50 per cent share and is now 100 per cent owner of the company and the construction project.
The Devoll hydropower project is currently the first large scale public-private-partnership investment in the country and one of the largest hydropower investments in the Balkans. With a total capacity of 243 MW, the Devoll river project will generate approximately 700 GWh of renewable, environmentally-friendly energy each year and increase the current electricity production in Albania by approximately 17 percent. It will supply more than 300,000 Albanian households.
The Banja dam project was initiated in the mid-1980s during the communist regime but dropped in the early 1990s.
Private and concession hydropower plants contributed by 31.6 percent of domestically produced hydropower in the first half of this year, up from about a quarter during the same period last year.
