EPBiH discussing its 90 MW Bitovnja wind farm project with local community

After a hiatus of several years, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s state-controlled power utility Elektroprivreda BiH (EPBiH) has revamped the 90 MW Bitovnja wind farm project. It is holding public consultations with the local population in the municipality of Konjic, where the facility is to be built. In May its officials held a town hall meeting with residents of Bradina, one of the locations of the proposed wind park. According to EPBiH, they backed the project.

The next meeting, scheduled for July 5 in the local community of Kreševo, will gather members of mountaineering, hunting and other associations that use the area where the Bitovnja wind farm is planned to be built.

At the meeting, EPBiH officials will present the environmental impact assessment of the project, which is expected to cost BAM 200 million (about EUR 102 million).

The project is valued at more than EUR 100 million

According to EPBiH, the project will bring multiple benefits to the local community – from hiring local firms to jobs for local residents once the wind farm is completed, to income from concession fees for the City of Konjic.

At the meeting in Bradina, EPBiH officials said that the local road infrastructure would be upgraded and improved and that everything would be returned to its original state following the construction of the wind farm, with a particular emphasis on the cranberry and blueberry plantations.

KfW approved EUR 1.1 million in 2018 to help prepare the Bitovnja project

The Bitovnja wind farm project was initiated several years ago, and the German development bank KfW approved a grant worth EUR 1.1 million for its preparation back in 2018. Now, after a break of several years, EPBiH has stepped up work on the project.

EPBiH working on decarbonization as it braces for carbon tax

EPBiH recently agreed to install solar power plants in abandoned open pits of its coal mine Đurđevik in the municipality of Živinice, a project that could make the northern Bosnian town the first coal-dependent area in the Western Balkans to kick off the energy transition.

The state-controlled power producer has also secured a EUR 36 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the 50 MW Vlašić wind farm in the municipality of Travnik.

EPBiH is turning to renewable energy to decarbonize its operations because it expects that carbon taxation in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be introduced in three to eight years, posing one of the biggest business risks in the coming three-year period.