Austria's Andritz To Supply 100 Mln Euro Turbine Generator Units to Albania

Andritz was assigned the deal to supply the electromechanical equipment to the Ashta hydropower plant, to be built on the Drin river, in northern Albania, Andritz said in a statement.

Verbund, through its Albanian subsidiary Energji Ashta, will develop the 48-megawatt hydropower plant, an investment worth 160 million euro. The power plant is planned to start operations in 2012.

"Concepts for utilising this section of the River Drin for energy generation have been under discussion since the 1990ies, but have not been realized so far due to expected non-viability of conventional hydropower technology at this site," Andritz said.

Albania's hydropower plants, most of them built on the Drin river, have a combined installed capacity of 1,670 MW. The Balkan country, which relies almost entirely on its water resources to generate electricity and meet domestic energy demand, produced 2,993 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in the first half of 2009, 50% up from a year earlier. Also in 2009, thanks to abundant snow- and rainfall, Albania made its first ever electricity exports, selling a total of 797 GWh of electricity abroad through June, mainly to Greece.

The Andritz Group (www.andritz.com), headquartered in Graz, makes equipment for customized plants, process technologies, and services for the hydropower, pulp and paper, metals, and other industries such as solid/liquid separation, feed and biofuel. The Group has employs approximately 13,400 people worldwide operating over 150 production sites, service, and sales companies.

($ = 0.6796 euro)