Energy Lesson For Kosovo from South Africa

A major United Nations Conference on climate change was held in December in Durban, South Africa. The question is whether Kosovo can learn something from the conference, which gathered representatives from 194 countries around the globe to discuss what to do about global warming.

Photo by Jonathan Buonocore

The problem is that, when Kosovo joins the list of the 194 UN members and becomes a member of this organisation, we will be ranked at the bottom in environmental terms as one of the most polluted countries on earth, due to our high emissions of heavy-polluting lignite fuel.

We are told that the new power plant, Kosova e Re, will resolve this problem because development of the new facility will result in the decommissioning of the existing plant, Kosova A.

However, the World Coal Association, which held a roundtable in Durban on December 5, says development of new technologies to capture and store CO2 is progressing only slowly.

No power plants anywhere in the world show that this technology is fully functional. In other words, even when using the most advanced technology, there is currently no way to burn coal without polluting the environment.

The sooner we understand this in Kosovo, the less we will lie to ourselves and the public and the better prepared we will be to take decisions on next year’s developments related to the (non)construction of a new coal-powered thermal power plant.

But, will we take these decisions, or will foreigners take them on our behalf?

Bank’s role – South Africa and Kosovo:

During the conference it was revealed that World Bank had failed to implement its own environmental policies by issuing approval of a 3 billion euro loan to construct one of the largest lignite-powered thermal power plants on the globe, TPP ESCOM, in Limpopo, in the north of South Africa.

This assessment came from the inspection panel, an independent body of the World Bank. Its report on the South African Thermal Power Plant was published by ClimateWire and can be found on its website.

In April 2010, the World Bank decided to support the development of this controversial thermal power plant with a capacity of 4,800 megawatts.

This decision was so controversial that the loan failed to receive the supporting vote of the United States. President Barack Obama’s administration has pushed the environmental agenda much further than previous US administrations and it would have been difficult for Washington to continue speaking of the merits of clean air at home while being party to a decision to pollute the air of much poorer South Africa. However, US abstention did not result in the loan being blocked.

This recent report of the South African project inspection panel is of great significance for Kosovo because the coal-powered thermal power plant in Africa represents the latest WB global experience in support of coal projects.

If the Bank failed to apply its standards there, who can guarantee that it will not fail in the Kosova e Re project, which seems to enjoy more support from the World Bank than it does from Kosovo’s own government.

Photo by Korab Basha

After 18 months of research, the inspection panel on the African project concluded that the Bank had not taken due consideration of the harm that the power plant would cause to human health and to water supplies in the region.

The inspection panel criticized the Bank for not considering the impact of the utilization of this resource on the lives of people.

Another argument, which represents the basis for the inspectors’ critique of the Bank, is that the expansion of the mine required to supply the thermal power plant would cause additional pollution – yet another argument not considered by the Bank when forging ahead with the South African project.

Third, and most conclusive, the inspectors found “numerous deficiencies” in the Bank’s assessment of problems caused by poor air quality, a consequence of thermal power plant operations.

The World Bank is showing a similar disregard for health, environmental and water-use considerations in the planning and development of the Kosova e Re plant.

In South Africa, this thermal power plant is now confirmed to be problematic even though it is located in an area of low population density. In our country, the Bank will be supporting development of the power plant under our noses, 10km from the capital.

When, during a meeting with civil society representatives last September in Washington, I asked the World Bank chief, Robert Zoellick, why was he trying to develop a coal-powered thermal power plant in Kosovo - when the Bank had failed to follow its own standards in a similar project in South Africa - he briefly responded that their overriding aim in developing countries was to provide electricity to the poor and develop the economy.

At the Durban conference I met representatives of South African communities who said this project did not provide electricity for the poor.

On the contrary, entire neighborhoods were forced to disconnect from the electrical grid because of the inflated prices burdened on random consumers as they pay off the loan that the state obtained from the World Bank - as the state was unable to find any other means to repay the loan to construct the plant.

Electricity tariffs have increased so much that the poor are unable to pay for the electricity they are now provided with. It is important to emphasize that in this calculation, the lowest electricity prices, much lower than those paid by regular consumers, are paid by large South African companies, very similar to Kosovo’s Ferronikel.

Therefore, Zoellick’s argument that the Bank is helping the poor by developing coal-powered thermal power plants appears invalid. The new power plant will advance the development of new Ferronikels, not benefit the public. Ask the residents of the Drenas area how it feels to live next door to such polluters.

Renewable energy potential ignored:

If the Bank wishes to help the poor in Kosovo, why are there no projects to ensure the more efficient use of electricity in Kosovo, 40 per cent of which is unbilled?

How does one explain that in most countries of the region, the Bank develops projects to encourage energy efficiency, but none in Kosovo? Does the Bank consider Kosovo a black hole?

You don’t need to be an energy expert to go to the World Bank webpage and see how in Serbia, for example, an Efficient Energy Project was initiated since 2004.

Montenegro has Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings. In Macedonia there a project to develop efficient energy and alternative energy market has existed since 2006. In Kosovo, there is a plan to burn our coal as soon as possible, preferably before we are ready to join the EU.

Did none of the economic minds working for the World Bank realise that Kosovo, a country with the greatest energy loss, urgently needs projects mitigating the problem of the evaporation of 40 per cent of generated electricity – leaving aside plans to suffocate the next two to three generations in the country? Should we not provide the upcoming generations with air that is cleaner than the air we breathe?

You don’t need to be an expert also to conclude that it’s not that the Bank does not know this; it simply does not want to listen to the people it works with in Kosovo, who repeatedly state that Kosovo has great potential to generate clean energy.

It did not take me long to find out, during the filming of the “Kingdom of Coal” documentary, that those who can confirm that Kosovo has clean energy potential are precisely the Kosovo government experts that remain committed to the Kosova e Re coal project.

If anyone is interested (someone like World Bank), these people have compiled maps showing that the Dukagjini region is potentially suitable for wind-powered electricity generation. They sense that renewable energy does not represent a luxury or a mission but could open up phenomenal business opportunities, as small projects result in new employment possibilities and, in the long run, cost less to maintain than power plants.

One expert is Lorik Haxhiu, who has been the Kosova e Re Project Manager for six years.

He has also recently established the Kosovo Renewable Energy Association. If Kosovo has no renewable energy potential, what are the experts of the Kosovo government doing establishing renwable energy organisations? Perhaps they know something that the cynics, who baselessly say that Kosovo has no renewable energy potential, don’t know.  

If the Bank does not trust civil society experts who say there is potential to be explored, they have a credible source here staring right at them. They should not try to sell the development of Kosova e Re as an attempt “to help the poor in Kosovo and to develop Kosovo”. This did not fly in South Africa, and it certainly shouldn’t fly in Kosovo, either.

At the time of writing this article, investors’ requests to develop wind-powered generators are being forwarded from one Kosovo regulatory office to the other while three such wind-power generators constructed in Golesh are not allowed to generate energy although they obtained all permits required for operation.

Alternative energy and energy efficiency do not represent a sacrifice. Such projects have the potential to employ more people than a thermal power plant, which will not only harm our health but will not generate new jobs.