Eight Firms Place Bids to Supply 219 GWh of Electricity to Albania

OSSH will announce in 20 days the names of the chosen power suppliers, OSSH spokeswoman Elona Meco told SeeNews.

The bidders are Germany's E.ON, EFT and Atel, both based in Switzerland, Serbia’s Rudnap, Albania’s GSA, Czech Ezpada, Slovenia’s Gen-I and Austria’s Red.

The imports will cover the county’s power demand in the next two months, Meco said.

Energy demand is rising in Albania, where more than 95% of the electricity output is generated by hydropower plants.

In June Albania's power utility KESH contracted seven firms to supply a combined 883 GWh of imported electricity in the second half of the year. State-owned KESH paid some 70 million euro on this amount of electricity.

This is the first power tender carried by OSSH after its unbundling from the power utility KESH.

Last month Czech power utility CEZ won a tender for the privatisation of 76% of OSSH, offering to pay 102 million euro. CEZ has pledged to invest 323 million euro in OSSH including to pay the company’s outstanding debt of 15.6 billion Albanian leks. Albania’s government is expected to endorse the sale by the end of the year.

($=0.7406 euro)