Kosovo released hundreds of millions invested from the energy crisis

The age of thermal power plants has been repeatedly cited as the main reason for the lack of this product produced in the corporation.

Only from the KEK's personal budget after privatisation have 76m euros been invested in two “Kosovo A” and “Kosovo B”.

Skender Bucolli, an information official at the Kosovo Energy Corporation, in a response to Radio Free Europe, says Kosovo's “thermal power plant, B”, investments are made mainly in generator and steam supply pumps.

When, with greater value, higher-value investments have been implemented in the Kosovo power plant, primarily in parts aimed at increasing performance and reducing environmental pollution”, Bucolli says.

It's not just this amount of investments that have been made in these thermal plants. For Radio Free Europe, earlier by KEK officials, it has been said that between 2003 and 2016, more than 400m euros have been invested in these two thermal power plants, while it is unknown what the value of donations is.

On the other hand, representatives of civil society consider that since the end of the war over 1.2 billion euros in the energy sector have been invested.

Representatives of nongovernmental organisations, meanwhile, stress that despite millions of investments in KEK thermal power plants, improvements on the ground are not being observed.

The Paka Consorture, from the Kosovar consortium of the Society for Energy (KOSID), tells Radio Free Europe, that in Kosovo there is still unstable with electrical energy, but also environmental pollution from thermal power plants.

The problem of air pollution in Pristina, especially in the municipality of Obilic, indicates that no real investment has been made in this direction, given the fact that the thermal power plants are too old”, Puka tells Radio Free Europe.

Despite investments, the thermocentral plant “Kosovo A” consisting of five blocs will be closed to function in 2023, when the thermal power plant “New Kosovo” will be completed.

Uplink investments in the “Kosovo A”, the Puka Framework calls them wrong. He recalls that the Kosovo government had pledged that due to age and inadequacy to lower the pollution level, at the beginning of 2017, this thermal power plant would be shut down.

This was the pledge of the Government of Kosovo at the Vienna and European Union Energy Community Secretariat, within the implementation of European Union standards for emissions.

“These investments are wrong, for the very fact that a thermal power plant over 30 years old, has had to be decommissioned. This has also been the initial plan and promise of past governments that this thermal power plant will be shut down. The European Commission's support for the decommission process, which could cost over 50m euros, is also lost, those later transported to consumers”, Puka explains.

Otherwise, after more than a decade of preparations at the end of last year, the Government of Kosovo has managed to sign the commercial agreement with the American company “Contour Global” to build New Kosovo's “plant.

This thermal power plant, according to Economic Development Minister Valdrin Luka, Kosovo guarantees energy independence and continued security with electricity, bringing major side effects on job creation.

Construction of this thermal power plant, which according to Luka, amounts to around 1.3 billion euros, will be a powerful catalyst for the country's economic development. Some 10,000 people are expected to be employed during the construction phase, while after the construction phase is completed, 500 workers will remain at work. / REL