Kosova Airlines Seeking Partners to Achieve Ambitious Growth Plans

KOSOVO
Energy & Mining
A New Power Plant and Untapped
Coal Reserves Are Set to Electrify
the Industry
As the country looks to move forward following the boon
of independence in February 2008, energy has been
earmarked as a key piece of Kosovo’s development jigsaw.
Indeed, since the turn of the century, the international
community through the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
has been working with the Kosovo Energy Corporation
(KEK) to help the country meet its energy needs and
rebuild its utilities infrastructure. The state now wants
to build on this to exploit its abundant resources of
lignite to power the country’s future development.
As part of this process, the Ministry of Energy has
drafted a 10 year energy strategy that lays out the
supply and demand dynamics of the sector up until
2015. With estimated lignite reserves of between 11.5
billion and 14 billion tonnes, representing the fifth
largest reserves in the world, the government is well
placed to meet the residential and industrial energy
requirements over the coming decade.
Currently, KEK runs two power plants Kosovo A and
Kosovo B. The plants are not currently running at full
design capacity but provide approximately 7,000MW to
the country. This falls short of peak demand requirements
with the government importing up to 400MW of
electricity during the winter months. Kosovo, however,
is working hard to bridge this deficit. The government
is in the planning stage for Kosovo C and an associated
lignite mine, which will bring the phased introduction
of 2,000MW to both the local market and also to the
electricity grid of South East Europe. The ambitious
plan to move from being a net importer of electricity
to becoming a net exporter is expected to be launched
between 2012 and 2014.
With a projected GDP growth of 9% between 2009 and
2015 and investments worth €14.488 billion, the country
will desperately need this capacity expansion to fuel
this economic growth especially in the manufacturing
sector. Moreover, the extra capacity will give the country
an export capability of between 300-500MW helping to
ease current deficits. Indeed, this surplus energy may
translate into as much as €150 million worth of exports
after 2012. Indeed, even with the Ministry of Energy’s
high growth scenario of an annual increase in demand
of 5.5%, the country would still have surplus energy
upon the completion of Kosovo C.
Therefore, although much work needs to be done to
build on the pre-independence infrastructure, the
government is well placed to roll out extra capacity which
will position Kosovo as a major player in the South East
European energy market. As such, and with voluminous
lignite reserves, the future looks bright both metaphorically
and literally.
55