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E-TJERA

HPP concessions are mostly on paper, 70% have not entered production

Politiko 2023-06-01 13:15:14

A few years ago the government started a widespread practice of granting approval for small hydropower plants with a capacity of up to 2MW.

The latter could pass only with the signature of the responsible Minister of Energy without the need to pass to the government.

As these non-concessional contracts increased year after year, energy and environmental experts raised questions about the profitability of this type of investment in relation to the damage it caused to the water sources where they were expected to be built. Today, years later, a good part of these projects remain only on paper.

The Supreme State Control (SCSC) in its annual report underlines that at least 70 percent of the energy contracted for HPPs below 2 MW has not yet entered production. The same situation appears in other contracts that are concessions and that have passed with government decisions.

"On the use of natural resources, it was noted that: about 70% of the total energy contracted for HPPs under 2 MW, not subject to concessions, and about 50% of the total energy in concession contracts for HPPs have not yet entered production ; Meanwhile, about 35% of the concession contracts for the use of hydropower resources are out of date, have resulted in violations or are in court proceedings, as well as the "concession fee" (free electricity) in significant amounts has not been benefited from them. report.

The KLSH report also focuses on the use of the sun and wind in energy production and the capacities that have been approved for this group.

The High State Control has come to the conclusion that it is difficult to evaluate the process at present since the files do not have the acts generated by the ministry, nor is there an assessment of the technical and financial capabilities of the interested entities.

"Regarding the approval of the construction of new electricity production capacities that are not the subject of a concession (photovoltaic/ wind/ hydro), there were difficulties in tracking the process since the files for the approval of photovoltaic/ wind plants do not contain the acts generated by the structures of MINE; "a fair evaluation of the technical, financial and economic abilities of the applying entities was not carried out by the application evaluation commissions," the report states.

Another point brought to attention is the one on concessions and public-private partnership contracts, where it turned out that in some cases, during the implementation of competitive procedures for granting concessions for the production and distribution of hydroelectric power, the identification of the concession was not done before potential of the project, accompanied by the analysis of profitability and financial suitability./ Monitor