Pathology of a Failure

After 500m euros' investments in 2000-2002, in the Electronic Corporation, and the ongoing lack of electricity, plans for the construction of a new thermal power plant “Kosovo C” with a capacity of 2010. It was the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which would bring the agreement near the signing in 2006, despite the opposition coming from all experts with Kosovo and civil society.

The government, pushed by the World Bank, USAID and the EU were, at any cost, supporting a huge project under the motto that “Kosovo will become energy superpowers in the region”.

Environmentalist Luan Shllaku would write to his publication, “Pathology of a delay”, that the “ide of building such a large TC dates back to the late 1980s, when the electroeconomics then established a special office that would deal with preparing the ground to build a thermal power plant in Kosovo, quite near. T C Kosova B, with capacity of 2,100 MW, in which some Yugoslav electromagnets at the time would invest”.

Shllaku wrote and opposed any debate, that its eventual construction would be disastrous for Kosovo, especially in an environmental respect. For this project, the World Bank, USAID and the EU had done studies on the ground, organising also “the awareness and educational campaign, with the population of Obilici”.

The entire debate between 2004 and 2010 would receive polarising character among the ruling parties, that world LDK- AAK, and PDK in opposition. LDK power- AAK, aimed at building mega-project, while The PDK insisted that Kosovo does not need such a thermal power plant. And when the PDK came to power in 2008, it proposed that the TC first be 1,000MW.

But it was only after the World Bank and the EU had restructured plans for the 2100-megawatt project. Both factors ( BB and the EU would suggest the Government in 2009 to start preparations for a TC, three times smaller, 500 to 600MW.

In 2008, the World Bank had approved the Strategic Framework for Development and Climate Change (SFDCC). This document was defining the World Bank Group policy for any future participation in coal-based energy generation projects. The group would select a Panel of three experts (author János M. Beér, Wladyslaw Mielczarski, Derek M. Taylor) to assess the compliance of the project proposed by the Government of Kosovo. The panel would support Government in the thermal power plant project. The government would approve the 2009-2018 Energy Strategy, in which all steps in the construction of the thermal power plant would be made in line with the EU acquis (as Kosovo is part of the Energy Community Treaty).

This strategy was targeted that TC “Kosovo A” will be maintained at the earliest until 2017, while “Kosova B” would be revived during 2016-2017. By this time it was thought that the new thermal power plant would be built, which would replace “Kosovo A”.

Between 2010-2015, the Bank has estimated that the T project The CKR is in line with six (6) criteria set by the World Bank Group.

The specified criteria were that: the project has developmental impact; it builds low carbon; it saves the possibilities for meeting the country's needs by energy efficiency; the project is necessary, as alternative energy is not a current solution; the project will use the highest technology available.

Low - Cost Plan

So, besides supporting the Bank was recommending a low-cost “plan”:

• New thermal power plant with 600MW to be built by 2017
• Shut down “
• Kosovo rehabilitation B in 2017-2018,
• Zhur plant construction 305 MW in 2017;
• 60MW small hydropower;
• 250MW by wind installed between 2016-2021;
• 20 MW from biomass and 70MW from biogas installed in 2022 - 2023.
  Beyond these projects, the focus was on building the new thermal power plant.
  During tests, the World Bank always issued the thermal power plant as the most favourable for market conditions. Solar energy would not even include it in the energy supply plan. This was in view of the fact that the cost of its production was between 251 and 270 megawatts per hour (before 2015).
  A study by “Mercados Energy Markets International” (2009) referred to by the World Bank gave indicators that about two-thirds of the potential for renewable energy can come from wind turbines.
  But, referring to another study made by “NEK Technologists”, it was said that very few countries in Kosovo have speeds of 6 meters per second, estimated as the average “”.
  The findings did not even prefer geothermal energy because of low water and soil temperatures.

How did World Bank's Kosovo PATELS remain?

PATEL has been the name of a panel that has been leading the World Bank's energy technical assistance project for several years. PATEL has helped the Government of Kosovo strengthen policies, legal and regulatory frameworks to enable new investments in the energy sector, and to help Government attract qualified private investors to develop lignite mines and build new energy generation capacities from high standards of environmental and social sustainability.
The panel of experts recommended that, depending on comments and recommendations, the Government of Kosovo go ahead with the thermal power plant project as soon as possible.

The panel estimated that the new thermal power plant should replace the old thermal power plant over 60 years -“Kosovan A”; be affordable for energy production, because CO2 emissions reductions will be proportionally reduced to increased efficiency.

The panel would also recommend to the Government that TC construction of two units out of 300 MW, be the single MW with 600 megawatts. Bed circuitry plant (“Circulating Fluidized Bed”) The CFB, which would comply with the rules of emissions for SOx and Nox, without additional gas treatment.

Interestingly, many studies have been done for this project, and each option has strengthened construction and thermal power plant.

Everlasting Objections of the Civil Society

The project to build the new thermal power plant, except for political supporters, has always had opponents. Civil Society representatives have been split over this project. On one side of environmentalist and old civil society activist Luan Shllaku, (who has been leading the Open Society Foundation for years), did not at all object to a small-capacity thermal power plant, but it appeared classically against TC of 2100 megawatts. The rest of the society, represented by the Kosovar consortium of the Sustainable Civil Development Society (KOSID), urged the Government to cancel the contract with Contour Global. Their response came after the World Bank president's statement that he will not support the coal-fired power plant. The WB president's statement, KOSID, would call it victory. But, six years ago, the Bank, it's not that it took NGOs' complaints very seriously. He called them the “Civil Society spectators”. Panel PATEL encouraged openness and transparency through fully developed consultative processes and the inclusion of society in various processes “times this is possible”.

KOSID's lobbie in all centers of the world, (backed by powerful lobby foundations), and especially in Washington, had its effect on the World Bank, whose president I declare to co-ordinator of KOSID (Visar Azemi in 2018) that they will not support the project designed by them. The “is a very specific moment that the World Bank publicly acknowledges that the solution for Kosovo is not the construction of the coal power plant, but the renewable energy, which is already cheaper than the one with coal”, was expressed a few hours after having the answer from the BB president, known as Dr. Kim.

Kim's president argued that the price of pure energy is becoming lower than coal production. We are required by our underground actions to follow lower-cost options since alternative resources are now under the cost of coal, we will certainly not support such a” project.

This is when the power plant project takes its first hit, which would later lead to failure.

However, Government and investor “Contour Global” remain determined to finalise the project.

“Contour Global” manager Joseph Brandt, would say that the World Bank's statements are “without any impact on the financial completion of the project” and that according to government planning, construction of the “New Kosovo” would begin construction in the first part of 2019, operating in 2023.

“Contour Global” would require, among other things, state financial guarantees for the project, but that was impossible.

Political changes would affect them. In early 2020, it was to come to the Vetevendosje Government, which had always opposed the construction of the thermal power plant with the conditions the Government and Contour Global agreed on. This company would declare in March 2020 that: the “Project New Kosovo cannot move forward. The political situation in Kosovo since July, the formation of a government led by a prime minister who publicly rejected the project, and the government's inaction has made it impossible for the project to meet the required” obligations.

In turn, the 2017-26 Energy Strategy has set five strategic objectives:

1. Insurance of sustainable and qualitative power and capacity supplies
   Need for a stable power system;
2. Integration in Regional Energy Market;
3. Increasing existing capacity of thermal systems and building new capacities;
4. Development of natural gas infrastructure;
5. Fulfilling limits and obligations in energy efficiency, renewable energy sources and environmental protection.
   Two of the goals of this strategy have already failed: construction of the thermal power plant and development of infrastructure and gas.
   Despite the strategy there, Prime Minister Kurti has indicated that Kosovo has never had real energy strategies. The government has started, in late November, drafting a new energy strategy, with promises that in March 2022, the Assembly will be introduced.