Austria's Verbund To Kick Off 160 Mln Euro Hydro Power Project in Albania in Early March

Austrian energy company Verbund said on Wednesday it will launch in early March the construction of a 160 million euro ($220 million) hydro power plant in Albania.

Verbund's local subsidiary, Energji Ashta, has received all permits necessary for the kick-off of the project, Verbund said in a statement.

The Ashta hydro power station will have an installed capacity of 48 megawatts (MW) and is expected to become operational in 2012. It will supply electricity to more than 100,000 households.

It would be the fourth in a chain of hydro power plants on the Drin river, near the border with Montenegro.

The electricity produced by the hydro power unit will be sold to the country's power utility, KESH, in the first 15 years of operation after which the two parties can either extend the contract or the plant can start selling on the deregulated market.

Albania's hydro power plants, most of them built on the Drin river, have a combined installed capacity of 1,670 MW. The Balkan country, which relies almost entirely on its water resources to generate electricity and meet domestic energy demand, produced 2,993 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in the first half of 2009, up 50% from a year earlier, according to the latest available data.

Also in 2009, thanks to abundant snow- and rainfall, Albania made its first ever electricity exports, selling a total of 797 GWh of electricity abroad through June, mainly to Greece.

($ = 0.726 euro)

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