Address by Prime Minister Edi Rama at presentation of the Skavica hydropower plant project:

Hello everyone!

It is really a pleasure that in such a short time span we are back here to announce another major renewable energy project following the super successful international race for the Grand Solar Power Park of Karavasta, but, of course, the today’s taste is different and it is a very special taste indeed, precisely because it is all about a dream in the drawer for many Albanian administrations since the late ‘60s, – a dream in the drawer about finalization of a hydropower plant project over the Drini cascade –because we all know that the project has yet to be finalized, precisely because of the lack of this fourth component, the Skavica power plant component, which first became known in the Medieval-era manuscripts by Dhimitër Frangu, as a property owned by Skenderbej and a major stronghold of the resistance, when the Drini Gorge, surrounded by high mountains, became a natural castle of Arber. Many years have passed since 1963, when an original design was unveiled to build the hydropower plant in Skavice, following the Vaut i Dejes power plant in 1971, Fierza plant in 1979, and Koman power plant in 1985. However, Skavica hydropower plant remained simply an uncompleted project. Things went differently and with the system change in the country, efforts were actually made by all administrations since then. A concrete effort was actually made in 2005 by the then government to award a build-operate-transfer concession under an unsolicited project, but it turned out to be an illusory soap bubble. Three years later, in 2008, the previous government launched a tender for the construction of the hydropower plant and six international companies participated in the process and the winner was supposed to be announced in 2009. However, no winner has been announced since then and the story went on until 2013, when, we can openly state, the two major strategic projects for the country and the whole southeastern part of Albania, namely the Skavica hydropower plant and the Arbri Road were constant companion of both the governments’ sincere wishes and the electoral campaigns. But nothing happened.

We returned Skavica hydropower plant project back to the table of Trieste Summit in 2017. Skavica HPP was approved as one of the priority projects under the Berlin Process, where, since the Process’ restructuring in 2014, we positioned ourselves to prioritize this path by guaranteeing not only its funding but also its quality. In fact, in 2017 the project was accepted and today we have a detailed design by a leading and internationally-known company, a French company that provides a clear picture of the project and the path we need to follow.

I am very glad that after 40 years it is precisely this government the one to start work to construct a hydropower plant of strategic importance for the energy sector and the country’s economy, turning a well-known potential into reality so that Albania has a key role to play in power production and energy import and export in the region.

We, too, have made our efforts to address the need for construction of the Skavica HPP through a solution, which is common for the system we have chosen, through the contribution of the private entrepreneurship, but by clearly seeing the project’s importance, looking very closely at the history of the failed attempts by all previous administrations and assessing on the other hand the indispensability in the current conditions and in the framework of the national economic and social plan we are about to finalize soon after including the element of economic recovery following the devastating earthquake and the Covid-19 outbreak, we decided to finance this great work 100% with the Albanian state budget resources.

I recall many years ago when a top electrical engineer in Albania told me that “the Drin River cascade is a flock of sheep without a shepherd,” precisely also because of the fact that Skavica has a decisive role in management of the entire energy source to prevent floods when mass water discharges are activated due to the water overflowing the dam following torrential rains and I believe it deserves this definition, describing it as the shepherd of the flock of hydropower plans over that cascade. It is definitely an ultimate solution in terms of the floods imposed by the inability to save the millions and millions in income that is wasted and discharged, when it becomes impossible to cope with the water overflow and at the same time it is the financial balancer of all this wealth that, finally, through Skavica, will be eventually put under control and the entire energy import and export becomes much more predictable and Albania will no longer be forced to import electricity and instead it will export.

On the other hand, this project will undoubtedly have an incredible impact on that area and, as I already said, with the Arbri Road and the Skavica HPP, Albania’s northeast will usher in a completely new phase in terms of the economic and social aspect. It is true that hydropower plants have been proven as job creators in Albania, not only just during the construction, but also during their operation phase. Skavica will become a big job creator during its construction and it will generate more jobs in a later phase as a result of this whole complementary development that the area will go through, where, other projects to upgrade infrastructure and aspects of the urban administration of the territory will be developed. It is about hundreds of direct jobs and thousands of other indirect jobs in a whole chain of production, which needs to become operational. All combined, the advantages the Arber Road and Skavica HPP bring to the economy of the entire northeast part of the country lead to a simple conclusion that the country’s rebirth is entering a new era, including the Kukes airport as an additional component, because with the creation of the lake area and with the entire cascade functioning as a route or a “tourist route”, tourism in the area will have an important impact. I would provide a simple example: we are cooperating with the Director on a major urban and tourist transformation project in Koman, where some tourist transport nodes are operational, exploiting Koman as a major point for the so-called ferries along the river flows – I call them the so-called because they are not real ferries but a kind of sailing sheds, which with the God’s help will continue operating without causing any tragedy. The intervention we plan there is a complex one designed to turn this crossing point of cars on the board of these sailing sheds into a true tourist destination, a museum showcasing whole story of creation and development of Albanian electrical and energy system, a panoramic pedestrian roads and a whole complex, which would definitely play the role of a strong attracting magnet for everyone, who wouldn’t take the trouble to go upward from the transition territory on the board of the sailing shed and the lack of a proper promotion of the area due to the lack of this infrastructure.

Skavica dam will definitely provide more fresh data on area’s further development and I will give a simple example if we are to see the fantastic transformation of the environment and the landscape on the southeastern side of Korca following the construction of Devoll HPP, I think this is the case here and this is an opportunity for a significant transformation in view of tourism and economic development in this area.

Arbri Road and Skavica HPP will certainly strengthen agro-tourism in north-eastern Albania. I am convinced this whole green area of the capital city will experience significant development thanks to the Arberi Road and the Skavica HPP, significantly adding up to the potential for an integrated infrastructural, tourist and agro-tourism map, ultimately putting an end to the extreme misuse of the renewable energy reserves in Albania as a result of improvised projects and a fragmentation, often a damaging ones to this potential by constructing small hydro-electrical plants, which in many cases have worked like bloodsuckers that suck the blood of the country’s organism, often denying entire communities the opportunity to cultivate the land after causing water resources to dry up and causing serious damages to the ecosystem.

Of course, we are fully aware that Skavica HPP won’t turn Albania into an energy superpower, which was the ambition announced by the previous government, a problematic word cluster in itself, because the words mini and superpower do not fit, but they just show the ceiling of the provincial megalomania, because Skavica HPP is cannot compete against a nuclear power plant that was supposed to be built in Shkodra and I believe people still remember it that construction of a nuclear power plant at Buna Bridge was part of the previous government’s plan to turn Albania into a mini-superpower of energy. These are certainly projects we cannot really afford, because we don’t rank second after Germany, as we used to rank by becoming a mini-superpower and by seeking to become produces of the nuclear energy. However, Skavica HPP is an important piece to completing a beautifully designed mosaic in a distant past, but yet to be finalized. More importantly, with Skavica HPP we will boost the country’s renewable energy generation capacities and with the new Photovoltaic Park, due to be constructed soon, with further expansion of the solar energy capacities and with the introduction of the new component of the wind energy, we will be able to diversify the renewable energy sources to almost fully meet the domestic demand for energy and I believe this makes Albania an important energy hub and not a superpower and which certainly enables the national economy to receive a significant injection in a phase of transformation and transition, where our ambition is to emerge stronger even after two major consecutive blows we sustained due to the earthquake and Covid-19 epidemic, including the national economic recovery plan, with the reconstruction program already underway and expected to become more intensive in the next coming months. June is the month when major reconstruction sites will open one by one constantly, in a long and strong chain of employment, with the Minister, who really deserves entire respect for focusing on the concrete results from major projects, hopefully becoming ready to gather us again so that we can announce the procedure and the process of construction of Milot-Fier highway, traversing through Thumana and Rrogozhina, where we hope and believe that with the return of the normality, the suspended process for construction of the international Vlora airport will resume and hopefully within the year more construction projects will be launched. We have all the reasons to be very optimistic about addressing the effects and heal the grave wounds caused by the invisible enemy. We also expect the economy to rebound thanks to the reforms and efforts we have made to date.

I will conclude my speech by quoting a saying from the Ujmishte area about the incapable and incompetent people, because incompetency has delayed many things, bold and painful reforms and projects that could have been done much earlier. Should the justice system reform was to be launched 25 years ago, we would have had a very different Albania today. However, we can’t get back lost time, yet we can win as much as possible from the lost time and the saying has it as following: “I can’t bring honey to Drin,” which means that God has blessed this country with abundance and resources to make sure that the people leads a normal life, which is also the reason why we are still seeking and making efforts to create an economic and social normality. Thanking you all once again, especially those who contributed to this project, expressing my gratitude to our partners who kindly listened to us, although as always late, but their delays are justified and wishing Skavica to be construction site next year, as we have planned, but God forbid that we face a third blow, I very much hope that soon we will be here for the next major infrastructure project, the Milot-Thumanë-Rrogozhinë-Fier highway. 

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The Skavica hydropower plant, a 100% Albanian government-funded project, enters the path to finalization. The procedures for this strategic project for energy independence designed to turn Albania into a key factor in the region’s energy sector were formally launched today.

Skavica Hydro power Plant completes the Drin River Cascade, creates the possibility of conserving water reserves, eventually ending massive energy losses, which result in chronic flooding in the cascade’s downstream.

Implementation of this project will also contribute to increasing the security of existing hydropower plants over the Drin cascade (Vau i Dejes HPP, Fierza HPP and Koman HPP).

The project will enhance Albania’s independence from use of fossil fuels used to generate electricity, provide greater adaption of Albania’s power system to the climatic changes and reduce Albania’s dependence from the electricity imports.

Construction of the Skavica HPP will have a significant impact on the area’s economic development and the construction phase is expected to generate employment and growth of local economy,

With the official procedures launched today, the work to construct Skavica HPP is set to start next year.