EFT Gets Eco Permit for 64 Mln Euro Hydro Power Plant in Bosnia

Bosnia’s Serb Republic said it has issued to UK-based energy firm EFT an environmental permit for the planned 126 million marka ($87 million/64 million euro) Ulog hydro power plant.

The Republic is now reviewing EFT’s application for a construction permit for the project, the Republic’s Spatial Planning, Civil Engineering and Ecology Minister Srebrenka Golic was quoted as saying in a statement posted on the ministry’s website earlier this week.

The statement was issued following Golic’s meeting with a visiting delegation from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) which will participate in the financing of the Ulog power station.

According to the statement, the EBRD is interested in financing renewable energy projects in the Republic and, above all, in harnessing the entity’s vast hydro power potential. The multi-lateral lender is ready to support projects that will raise the energy efficiency of the industrial sector and will bring the production process at existing thermal power plants in line with the relevant EU directives.

The Republic, which makes up Bosnia together with the Muslim-Croat Federation, signed a 30-year concession contract with EFT for the construction of Ulog at the end of 2009. The Ulog power plant, to be sited on the river Neretva, will have a capacity of 35 megawatts and an average annual output of 86 gigawatthours, the Republic said at the time. The construction works are expected to take four years.

(1 euro=1.95583 Bosnian marka)

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