Enel advances project for coal power plant in Albania
Business, Top News Thursday, December 18th, 2008Tirana, Dec, 18, 2008 (AENews) – Italian energy giant Enel advanced its plans to build a 1600 MW thermal power plant on the Albanian coast, by presenting Environment Impact Assessment of the “Porto Romano Energy Complex”.
“On Sept. 24, Enel presented to villagers of the zone their Environment Impact Assessment”, officials of the Albanian Ministry of Environment told AENews off record. Although some journalists were present there, national media was not invited to attend the event and no news on such an event was ever published in national newspapers or broadcast on national TV stations.
The project includes two units of thermal power plant at a power of 800 MW each, a 400 Kw interconnection line linking the thermal power plant with Tirana’s transit station, a 500 Kw undersea interconnection line link Albania with Italy and a jetty for handling the imported coal.
The thermal power plant will use coal to produce electricity and will use sea water to cool machineries. According to Enel officials, their technology is environmentally friendly and that in the future will be possible to use a Carbon Capture System CCS, to reduce pollution.
Environmental activists are concerned by the fact that Albania is under way to transform itself into an offshore center for industries where they cannot pollute their home country.
According to Enel’s presenters in Durrës, the company would build and operate the plant under a 25-30 year concessionaire license. While the electricity produced would be sold to Albania at cost price and an undetermined amount of energy would be exported to Italy at market price, Enel reassured the public that there would be more than enough energy to cover the national needs.
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