Yesterday the government put on sale four existing hydropower plants,
built during the communist regime: those of Ulez, Shkopet, and two in
Bistrice.
The highest bid was 110 million EUR for the four of them. The four of them have an installed capacity of 80 MW, which means that the government will sell them for 1.37 million EUR for each installed MW.
As for the current prices of the market, the Ashta HPP with an installed capacity of 53 MW was sold for more than 200 million EUR. The construction cost is around 4 million EUR for MW, or 3 times higher than the price that the government is selling the existing ones.
This is not the only indicator showing that the government is selling it with losses to the citizens. According to official data, four HPPs produce 350-450 million KW/h annually. The government obliges the Albanian Power Corporation to buy it with 8-9 ALL per KWh, with a total income of 22 million EUR annually. According to experts, the buying value of the HPPs can be recovered in six years with these incomes. And this is for another reason. Shkopet and the two Bistrica HPPs have received large investments from the budget money and German government aids this year.
This means that they don’t need new investments, but the profit will be guaranteed. THe HPP business is very specific, because their management is only technical and when passed to the private sector there will be no improvement in management, efficiency or a decrease of corruption. All these arguments were used by critics to raise the question if the HPP sale is a good business for citizens, or is it being dictated by urgent budget needs only six months before the general elections.
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