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The "Tigers" of Vlora that never lit up, produced only 1% of the energy and received €1 million in rent

Politiko 2026-04-10 10:00:28

The "Tigers" of Vlora that never lit up, produced only 1% of the

When the energy crisis at the end of 2021 became clearly visible on the horizon, the Albanian government announced a competition to lease thermal assets to produce part of the oil-fired energy.

This procedure resulted in the "Two Tigers" (floating thermal power plants on ships) being deployed in Vlora in the fall of 2022.

In fact, at that time this purchase was still justified by high energy prices that reached record levels in August 2022. But as the years passed and the crisis faded, the two floating power plants were never put into operation in full form to justify their cost of millions of euros and that has never been officially made clear.

But the latest data from the Energy Regulatory Authority shows that in 2025 the two thermal power plants produced 77 thousand MWh of energy. This amount represents only 1 percent of the net domestic production, which was 7.44 million MWh.

These power plants are reported as one of the assets under the control of KESH, which also owns three hydropower plants of the Drin River Cascade, the Vlora Power Plant, and the “Qyrsaq” photovoltaic plant.

The total installed capacity owned by KESH sh.a. amounts to around 1,563 MW, of which the installed capacity of the HPPs in the Drin River Cascade is 1,350 MW, the Vlora TEC 98 MW, the floating thermal power plants Tigri 1 & Tigri 3 with a capacity of 110 MW, as well as that of the plant.

High cost of energy production

Energy production from thermal generators has always been expensive compared to other forms, undermining the viability of such a step.

In a scenario for the energy situation during 2023, official data showed that the production of energy from these units would cost 165 million euros. The generators were expected to produce 884 GWh at a production cost of 185 euros/MWh, something that never materialized.

The value of the thermal generators is estimated at 15 million euros, while the rent for a 2-year period was estimated at 46 million dollars, but this has now increased significantly, considering that the deadline for the generators to remain anchored in Vlora has been exceeded. /Monitor

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