The Ministry of Energy of Kosovo has annouced the new power plant, Kosova e Re. The intial tender for construction of 2,000 megawatt power plant has beeen chanceled. The ministry of energy says it plans to reissue a tender to build a plant with half that capacity.

Kosovo’s minister of energy and mines, Justina Shiroka-Pula, in a press conference said that the tender will be issued at the beginning of 2010.

“In 2010, we expect to close the tender and the winning company will be able to start the procedure for the realisation (of the project),” Shiroka-Pula is quoted by Pristina daily Koha Ditore as saying.

She said that initially the first block of 500 MW will be constructed and later on the other block will be build with the same capacity.

She added that the decision to decrease the capacity to 1,000 MW is part of the ministry's strategy to attract more potential investors to the bid. “For the construction of the 2,000 megawatts, the companies were supposed to ensure bank guarantees, or loans and now with less capacity, it’s easier for the companies too,” said Shiroka-Pula.

She said that the two consortia Czech-US Cez-AES and Italian-Greek ENEL-Sencap are still participating in the re-designed bid.

Pollution from the ageing power plants pose environmental and health problem to the 700,000 residents who live in the densely populated region surrounding the two
lignite-fired power plants, 10 kilometres from Pristina.