US-Italian consortium to lease oil-fired power plant to Albania

Albania’s power utility KESH will lease a mobile oil-fired thermal power plant with an installed capacity of 110-130 megawatts (MW) from US-Italian consortium Excelerate Energy – Renco.

A month ago KESH issued the call for expression of interest to determine opportunities for taking on lease a power generation asset that can be easily deployed and interconnected in the transmission grid of Albania. The company intends to secure an additional supply of electricity with prices lower than the one paid for import.

In October, Albania declared an energy emergency because of a lack of electricity for domestic consumption caused by the energy crisis.

KESH has now announced that it has received two expressions of interest: from US-Italian consortium Excelerate Energy – Renco, and from United States-based Distributed Power Solutions.

The offer from Excelerate Energy and Renco was accepted, while the offer from Distributed Power Solution didn’t comply with the provisions of the call for expressions of interest, and it was rejected, KESH said.

The bid from Excelerate Energy and Renco was evaluated and declared as the winning one.

Excelerate Energy has a large portfolio of floating LNG terminals, while Renco’s core activities are consulting, engineering and construction services for the energy sector.

Of note, in its call KESH has listed nine technical requirements for the facility. Among them is that the power plant must be in line with Albania’s legal requirements for environmental pollution and fit for deployment near the Vlora thermal power plant to use its interconnection infrastructure.