America to Invest Over USD 200 Million in Energy Sector in KiM – Big Batteries Storing Energy

An investment program of the American corporation Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), worth USD 236 million, through which a storage facility with a capacity of 350 megawatt-hours of electrical energy will be built in Kosovo and Metohija, was presented yesterday in Pristina.

The board of MCC approved, several days ago, the energy investment in KiM, according to Pristina officials, “the biggest investment in history” since the unilateral proclamation of independence, RTS reports.

The minister of economy in the temporary government in Pristina, Artane Rizvanolli, announced that the program included a grant of EUR 202 million of direct investments of the US government, whereby the energy sector in Kosovo would save EUR 15 million a year.

– The program will bring to Kosovo energy reserves through batteries of high capacities of around 347 megawatt-hours of reserves and will function to stabilize grid frequencies and to have the stored energy used at night, during the busiest hours of the day, which means that the expensive import of energy will reduce – Rizvanolli explained.

Sarah Olmstead, MCC Country Manager for Kosovo, said that the compact program was coming at a moment when the world was facing an energy crisis, further boosted by the war in Ukraine.

She expressed her expectation that, in Pristina, the program will be signed during July, so that it would then be ratified by the assembly. The first procurement procedure through the energy program will be launched in two years.

In addition to a sum of USD 202 million, a direct non-repayable investment of the US government, the government in Pristina will participate in it with USD 35 million, whereas two million will be funds from other American energy institutions for development, report the media in Albanian.

MCC

Millennium Challenge Corporation

Artane Rizvanolli

Sarah Olmstead

electrical energy

storage facility

construction

investment