Macedonia Signs Deal to Build Hydro Power Plant

Photo by: ELEM

Construction of the dam and plant will start in the first half of next year and will hopefully finish in four years, Macedonian Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski said on Thursday, after signing the deal with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD.

The EBRD is to lend €65 million to Macedonia to construct the power plant that will produce 117 gigawatt of power per year.

The state-owned ELEM Company, in charge for the country’s power production, will provide the rest of the money.

“With this we've officially fulfilled all the conditions for the start of this significant investment,” the minister said on Thursday.

Plans to build the Boskov Most power plant date back to 1983 but financial problems have resulted in construction being postponed several times.
 
Macedonia hopes that the plant, near the western town of Debar, will significantly improve the power supply in western Macedonia.

Macedonia imports roughly a quarter of its annual electricity needs. The other 75 per cent comes from domestic coal power plants and hydro power plants.

In Paralel with the Boskov Most project, the government is also pushing for the construction of another hydro power plant in the same vicinity, called Lukovo Pole, and is hoping soon to secure funds for its construction as well.

But not everyone backs the second plant. A group of local ecological NGOs is against the construction of a plant at Lukovo Pole. They argue that the dam and accompanying plant will flood parts of the Mavrovo national park, one of the last remaining homes to the endangered Balkan Lynx.

Earlier this year the authorities hired a consultancy firm to assess the ecological impact of the second dam.