TIRANA (Albania), December 12 (SeeNews) – Albania's state-owned power distributor OSHEE said on Wednesday it signed a memorandum of understanding with USAID for improving the distributor’s performance and operation.
USAID will offer one year technical assistance to improve OSHEE’s performance and operation, focusing on the company’s regional directorate of northwestern city of Shkodra, the power distributor said in a press release.
The goal of the project is to further reduced losses on the transmission and distribution network, OSHEE added.
USAID has hired the US consulting company Tetra TeCH to assist the project, the statement noted, adding that the technical assistance project is expected to be gradually implemented in other regions of the country.
In November, OSHEE said it has reduced losses on the transmission and distribution network to 23.7% in the first 10 months of 2018, from 26.5% in the like period of 2017.
OSHEE collected 54.97 billion leks ($500.4 million/439.4 million euro) from electricity bills in January-September, up 2.5% year-on-year, the company said at the time.
In 2017, the company’s losses on the power transmission and distribution network decreased by 1.63 percentage points to 26.41%.
Albania produces over 90% of its electricity at hydro power plants (HPP). Most of it is generated at three power plants along the Drin River, in the northern part of the country.
(1 euro = 123.182 leks)