Publications

The Polish energy market is dominated by coal, but two thirds of the installed coal capacity is older than 30 years. The EBRD could play a crucial role in the restructuring of this market by providing financial assistance to energy efficiency projects and renewable energy and at the same time refraining from further fossil fuel investments.

Update: The EBRD confirmed during later meetings that it will not finance any coal project in Poland.

The democratic revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East have not quite spread it to the authoritarian regimes of Central Asia. Nevertheless nervous reactions among leaders in these countries have proven another weakness of the proposed Nabucco pipeline project, in that the stable gas supplies promised by the project under the capacious term "energy security" are much less "secure" than previously expected.

The oil and gas-fired thermo-power plant in Vlora, Albania - in a tourism-dependent city and only 100 metres from the protected Narta lagoon - was financed by the EBRD, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank.

After a slew of problems, including lack of proper public consultation, the plant is not actually working - two years after it was supposed to have been completed – and it is increasingly doubtful whether it will start to produce electricity any time soon.

In November 2010 the EBRD, together with the European Union, announced its involvement in the EUR 1.2 billion Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) safety upgrade project for Ukraine. While safety upgrades at first appear a positive initiative, this project makes sense only in the context of NPP lifetime extensions, otherwise there is no reason to finance costly upgrades for facilities that will anyway close in a couple of years. And though the project promoter clearly links these safety upgrades with lifetime extensions, the EBRD is reticent to do so.

The Turkish company Georgian Urban Energy (GUE) has requested a USD 44 million EBRD loan for the Paravani HPP, an 87 MW plant using a 14 km derivation tunnel in order to divert water from the Paravani river to the Mtkvari river. Bankwatch member group Green Alternative has deep concerns regarding the project's potential negative impacts as well as its overall justification.

On April 14 2011 the Minister of Economy of Slovenia, presented a report on the management of the Sostanj TES 6 project to the Government of Slovenia. In the report many shortcomings of the project are highlighted, which led the Government to state that it will only support a state guarantee for the EIB loan amounting to EUR 440 million if the economic efficiency of the project can be improved.