No permit yet for Chinese CMEC for windfarm in Tomislavgrad

The Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation still has not issued a permit to CMEC (China Machinery Engineering Corporation) for the windfarm it plans to build outside Tomislavgrad, the Chinese company’s spokesman Zhang Weiwei said at a meeting with BiH Federation President Marinko Čavara. Weiwei said everything has been prepared to draw up a feasibility study for the project which he feels is profitable.

A memoradnum of understanding on the construction of that windfarm was signed in 2016 by the VE Gradina d.o.o. Cebara -Tomislavgrad company and CMEC –CAIDC (China-Africa Investment and Development Co.). The windfarm will be 112 MW and should be completed by the end of this year with an investment of around EUR 150 million.

Weiwei said that CMEC views this project as extremely profitable and added that the company is prepared to make more investments in Bosnia-Herzegovina because of the high efficiency rate of windfarms in the region.

Besides the windfarm CMEC plans to build, there are plans for at least two other wind power facilities in the area.

The Croatian company DIV announced its intention last autumn to construct the biggest windfarm in Bosnia-Herzegovina outside Tomislavgrad, in the Livanjski Canton. That company which is in shipbuilding and the production of screws plans to construct windfarms of a total power of between 400 MW and 600 MW to enter the market as a producer of power from renewable sources.

DIV is planning to manufacture the posts for the wind generators and to engage other companies for the rest of the work on the windfarm.

There is also a plan for the construction of  a windfarm in the Glamoč municipality which is also in the Livanjski Canton. That windfarm named Slovinj will have 49 wind generators of a total power of 130 MW.

Experts assessed that Bosnia-Herzegovina has a wind power potential as high as 2 GW but that about half that amount could be realistically exploited because of the limitations of the national grid.

According to Energy Community figures for 2015, BiH got just 0.3 MW of electricity from windfarms. The country plans to have 330 MW on installed power in windfarms by the year 2020.

At present Bosnia-Herzegovina gets about 40% of its domestically produced electricity from hydropower plants while the rest comes from coal-powered plants.