Verbund and EVN Jointly Implement Albanian Hydropower Plant

The Albanian government started the tendering procedure for the Ashta hydropower plant on River Drin on 15 January 2008. Verbund asserted itself in the call for tenders against international competition and was eventually selected by the Albanian government as the best bidder for the northern Albanian project.

The concession agreement was signed in Tirana on 30 September 2008 in the presence of Albania's prime minister, Sali Berisha. The river power plant is being constructed to the south of Shkoder, Albania's fourth largest city.

March 2010 already saw the start of construction on the innovative Ashta run-of-river power plant, which is to be equipped with state-of-the-art Hydromatrix technology. With a capacity of more than 50MW, Ashta, the world's largest Hydromatrix power plant, is scheduled to commence operations as early as 2012. It is designed to generate more than 240 million kWh of electricity per year and thus supply around 100,000 Albanian households with power. In total, Verbund and EVN have invested around EUR200 million in the power plant's construction.

Albania continues to be a growth market in terms of electricity requirements. Thus, even in today's difficult environment, the latest study by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) forecasts an economic growth of 3% for 2009, 4% for 2010 and 6% for 2011 - this is significantly higher than other countries in the region. At the same time, there is a predicted growth in electricity consumption of 4% per year until 2020.