Montenegro to invest 1 billion euros in boosting renewable energy – EQ Mag Pro
JAHORINA Mount., Bosnia : Montenegro’s majority state-owned power utility plans to invest about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) over the next five years to boost renewable energy output to 2,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year, and eventually become an exporter of green energy.
The small Adriatic country of 600,000 people produced a total of 3,160 GWh of electricity last year, mainly from coal and hydro sources.
“We can add 400 megawatts (MW) in the next two years, of that 100 MW already this year by installing solar panels on the roofs,” Milutin Djukanovic, the president of EPCG’s board of directors, told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Bosnia.
Montenegro, which typically has 240 sunny days per year, has huge potential to produce electricity from hydro, wind and sun, and that can be its engine of growth, Djukanovic said.
Gvozd, a 54 MW wind park which should produce 150 GWh per year, is expected to start operating in 2023, while works on the construction of the Komarnica hydro power plant, with a capacity of 182 MW, will start this year, Djukanovic said.
He said work on refurbishing the country’s only coal-fired power plant, agreed under a deal with China’s Dongfang Electric International Corporation (600875.SS), would kick off on Wednesday. The revamp of the Pljevlja plant is set to cost 73 million euros.
“We are launching an ecological reconstruction of the 210 MW Pljevlja thermo-power plant, which produces 40% of total electricity in Montenegro, to reduce emissions in line with European Union standards,” he said.
Montenegro also has an interconnection with Italy’s Terna.
EPCG operates about 650 MW of installed hydro-power capacity. It is now targeting mainly renewable energy sources as the country fosters closer ties with the EU.
($1 = 0.9401 euros)
Source: reuters
