Albanian utility set to move on with 12.9 MW floating PV project

• Korporata Elektroenergjetike Shqiptare began development of the EUR13.9 million center in December 2018. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is taking into consideration lending EUR9.5 million to a project which it is said would help reduce the electric company's dependence on hydro earnings.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and also Development (EBRD) is thinking about lending EUR9.5 million to state-owned Albanian utility Korporata Elektroenergjetike Shqiptare (KESH) for the building and construction of a 12.9 MW floating PV plant at a reservoir of the Drin River near Vau i Dejës, in Shkodër County, northwestern Albania.

" The project will certainly reinforce KESH's functional and monetary performance via decreased dependence on hydro revenues and due to the floating technology's favorable effect on the water levels of the existing tank," the loan provider stated in a paper on its website.

The EUR13.9 million plant has been prepared because December 2018 and would be the biggest floating project in the Western Balkans. It is planned the power created would be sold on the local spot market.

Ecological impact

"Environmental as well as social concerns connected with the project are prepared for to be localized, easily examined and minimized, based on an ecological and social due persistance [research]," specified the EBRD.

The plant would certainly be improved a tank at the 260 MW Vau i Dejës Hydroelectric Power Station possessed by KESH. The utility, which runs three hydropower plants with a mixed generation ability of 1.3 GW at the Drin River Cascade, operates around 80% of the country's generation capacity.

Norwegian renewables firm Statkraft, as well as compatriot floating PV specialist Ocean Sun, are establishing a EUR2 million, 2 MW floating solar project at the previous's 72 MW hydropower plant in Albania's Elbasan region.