TIRANA (Albania), March 29 (SeeNews) – Albania’s energy and infrastructure ministry said on Thursday it received a proposal from Austria's Ivicom GmbH for the construction of a 500 MW natural gas-fired cogeneration power plant near the southeastern city of Korca.
The project presented by Ivicom and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has an estimated cost of 500 million euro ($618 million), the energy and infrastructure ministry said in a statement.
The Austrian company has already concluded a feasibility study on the project which will be completely privately-funded.
Gas will be supplied to the power plant from the future Trans-Atlantic Pipeline (TAP) that will cross the area which provides a good opportunity to have a secure supply and efficient power generation, according to the statement.
The project will also give a boost to the local economy through the creation of greenhouses and provide efficient district heating for the city of Korca, the ministry said, citing the results of the feasibility study.
In February, TAP managing director Luca Schieppati said the TAP project is two-thirds completed, including engineering, procurement and construction. The TAP consortium plans to start full-scale operation of the pipeline in 2020.
TAP will stretch from Greece's border with Turkey, via Albania and across the Adriatic Sea, to reach Italy's coast. It is part of the Southern Gas Corridor which also comprises the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), which crosses Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP).
($ = 0.80851 euro)