Kosovo has awarded a 20-year concession on its Dikan hydro power plant to Albania's Frigo Food Energy Invest which has pledged to invest 2.5 million euro ($3.7 million) in the facility, Kosovo power utility KEK said on Thursday.
The investment operations will initially focus on the overhaul of the existing power generation units of the plant, a project that will last six months, KEK said in a statement.
The power utility did not specify if the contract was awarded on a competitive basis.
The Albanian company plans to raise the installed capacity by 2.66 megawatts (MW) under another project expected to last two years, the statement said.
The Dikan hydro power plant currently has two outdated units with a 2 MW installed capacity each.
The Dikan concession is the third handed out by KEK after clinching concession deals for its 8.3 MW Lumbardhi and 1.0 MW Radavci hydro power plants.
As a signatory of the Energy Community Treaty, Kosovo is obliged to meet up to 12% of its energy needs from renewable sources like water, biomass, solar energy and wind by 2015.
The members of the Energy Community are the European Community, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, according to data of the www.europa.eu website.
The three plants - Lumbardhi, Radavci and Dikan, generate 5.0% of the total base load energy produced in Kosovo with its two lignite-fired plants accounting for the balance, the KEK statement said.
Kosovo plans to build 18 small hydro power plants with a combined installed capacity of 63.7MW and average annual production of 294 gigawatthours (GWh). Total investments is estimated to reach 72.83 million euro.
Kosovo is also seeking private investments worth 206 million euro in total for the construction of the 320 mega volt amperes (MVA) Zhur hydro power plant to be located in Prizren Municipality. Zhur will have two units - Zhur I, with two accumulators of 134 MVA each, and Zhur II with one accumulator of 52 MVA. The planned installed capacity will be 292.8 MW and the average annual production is seen at 389 GWh.
($=0.6856 euro)
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