Power utility EPBiH, the project’s investor, is also planning to build a 35 MW solar power plant at the same location. This was said by the Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) Fadil Novalic during his visit to the construction site of Podvelezje wind farm.
PM Novalic said that the utility is also planning to build a similar wind farm nearby, meaning that the location will be able to provide about 135 MW of installed capacity in renewable energy, roughly the same amount as the existing HPP Jablanica. However, due to the unreliability of renewable energy, FBiH is forced to keep coal-fired plants to provide baseload energy, which is why EPBiH is building unit 7 at TPP Tuzla.
In June, EPBiH announced that the first of 15 foundations for wind turbines at its 48 MW Podvelezje wind farm project has been completed, adding that the concreting of all 15 foundations for wind turbines will be completed by the end of August. The construction of the first wind farm in company’s portfolio started in early May. The contractor for the construction of the wind farm is a consortium of Croatian subsidiary of Siemens Games and Danish Wind Power. The first wind turbine at the location was installed in October. Executive Director for Capital Investments at EPBiH Senad Salkic said that it is expected that most of the works will be completed by the end of the year and start trial operation in the first quarter of 2021. The project for the construction of Podvelezje wind farms envisages that the future power plant will have installed capacity of 48 MW and annual generation of some 115 GWh of electricity. This will be the first state-owned wind farm build in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the biggest post-war investment by EPBiH. The initial estimate was that the project should be finished by the end of 2019 and it will be operated under the 30-years concession contract, with an extension option. The value of the investment is estimated at 82 million euros and the funding will be provided through a loan by the German KfW Bank. Last year, project’s manager Semir Nurkovic said that EPBiH expects to commission the wind farm in February 2021.
