Voith Hydro is interested to participate in the construction of hydropower facilities in Montenegro. The company’s regional sales manager Predrag Krunić underscored that the country has significant energy potential in the rivers and streams of Morača, Komarnica, Lim, Ćehotina and Tara, while only 17% is utilized. The engineering enterprise from Heidenheim, Germany, participated in project development for a power plant on Komarnica, he added.
Voith Hydro cooperated with national power utility Elektroprivreda CrnFe Gore (EPCG) in the reconstruction of big hydropower plants Perućica and Piva financed with grants and loans from KfW Development Bank and the German government. Other, smaller projects in the two HPPs were subsequently implemented. Krunić told the Montenegrin company’s newspaper Elektroprivreda that the project of installing the eighth unit in Perućica is very interesting for Voith and that more than six years ago it gave an offer in the tender alongside another enterprise, but that the endeavour isn’t being implemented.
“Big part of unused hydro potential is related to Montenegro’s agreements with neighbouring countries of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is the Republic of Srpska, about common utilization of the potential and about constructing power plants. If conditions to build such power plants on these water streams are met, Voith Hydro would have the interest to participate in the construction of such facilities,” Krunić said. In 2013 the company won a contract to revitalize four units in HPP Zvornik in Serbia for EUR 65 million from a loan from KfW. Voith’s subsidiary Kössler was selected this year as part of a consortium to overhaul eight other HPPs, in a project financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The subsidiary also installed three small HPPs in Kosovo* last year, while Voith gave and offer for HPP Boškov most in Macedonia.
Krunić reminder that last year through Kössler his company supplied the equipment for three small hydro facilities and that it will deliver the gear for three more by the end of this year.
* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status and is in line with UNSCR 1244/99 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.
