Offical says new Kosovo-Albania transmission could end power crisis

Prishtina -- The way out of the energy crisis in Kosova, which would cost less and could be implemented quicker, is the construction of a 400 kilovolt [kV] transmitter with Albania, says the KEK [Kosovo Energy Corporation] international manager, Charles Brown, in an interview with KosovaLive.

Brown said that construction of new hydro or thermic power plants have a very high cost and take a lot of time.

He added that Kosova has a need to import power from Albania at peak times.

"The best way to supply it is by building a 400 kV transmitter with Albania to exchange electricity," Brown said.

Through this transmitter, he said, the KEK would send electricity to Albania when there is overproduction, especially during the night, and Albania would return the debt when they have electricity overproduction.

Kosova has overproduction during the summer and insufficient electricity during the winter, whereas it is the other way round with Albania, because Albanian capacities are based on hydroelectric plants.

The World Bank has allocated 1.1m dollars for conducting a feasibility study for an Albania-Kosova transmitter.

The idea for construction of hydro and thermoelectric power plants in Kosova is not right at this time. "Let's say we are to construct a power plant in Prizren - it would take six years and during that time we would not have production of electricity."

The KEK manager said that Kosova does not need a new plant. Kosova A Units are younger than the majority of plants in Southeastern Europe and they only need occasional repairs.

As far as the expenditures needed for construction of new plants, he said that at least some 20m euros are needed, which can hardly be secured, given the budget of Kosova.

In the last five years, Kosova has been faced with the problem of power supply due to the lack of repairs to the power plants in the 1990s and the failure of hundreds of million in investments to KEK from the international community.

BBC Monitoring European