The newest EBRD member, Kosovo, does not need new coal

December 22, 2012

Pristina - As Kosovo becomes the newest member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development today, civil society groups in the country tell the bank that it should exclude from the start any investments in coal and that it could have an enormous positive impact by supporting energy efficiency measures.

Kosovo currently loses up to 45 percent of its electricity in transmission and distribution, but is considering constructing a 600 MW lignite power plant that analyses conducted by the World Bank's former chief clean energy specialist Dan Kammen (1) show is more costly and creates fewer jobs than energy efficiency and renewable energy.

"We hope that EBRD membership for our country will help us move forward on a path of sustainable development and towards a European future," says Visar Azemi from the Kosovo Civil Society Consortium for Sustainable Development (KOSID), an umbrella organisation for non-governmental actors. (2)

"Right from the start, however, we want to make sure that the EBRD will support the kinds of investments people of Kosovo want," continues Azemi. "Indications that the bank could consider investing in the expensive and unnecessary Kosovo C coal plant make it imperative to remind the bank that Kosovo does not need more coal. Instead, before investing in new generation capacity it needs help to increase energy efficiency measures such as grid modernisation and building insulation programmes, which have been proven to be cheaper and to create more much-needed jobs than the coal plant."

In the week preceding Kosovo’s recognition as the newest member of the EBRD, Kosovo media claimed that a bank spokesperson signalled the bank's interest in financing the new 600 MW coal plant, Kosovo C, currently pushed by the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). (3)

The Kosovo C project has been around for over a decade, starting out as a planned 2000 MW plant that would turn the country into the leading energy exporter for the region. Yet lack of investors and resistance to a massive lignite project in a country that already has the highest single point-source of carbon emissions in Europe have gradually diminished ambitions. Even the current planned size threatens Kosovo’s EU ambitions as it would endanger the country’s ability to meet its 2020 climate targets it has committed to as part of the EU's Energy Community.

"The start of the EBRD’s lending in Kosovo at a time when it is also reassessing its overall energy lending creates the opportunity for the bank to make a fresh start and start saying no to controversial dirty coal projects in the Balkans," comments Ionut Apostol, EBRD coordinator at CEE Bankwatch Network. "The EBRD usually invests in coal in our region claiming it has no alternatives; but people in Kosovo are showing the bank already today that well-researched and superior alternatives exist."