Banjë Hydro Power Plant is a large

hydroelectricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

plant on the river Devoll situated near the village of Banjë,

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

. It was built by Devoll Hydropower, an Albanian company owned by Norwegian power company

Statkraft Statkraft AS is a hydropower Hydropower (from Ancient Greek -, "water"), also known as water power or water energy, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is ac ...

. The project consists of a large power plant with a nominal capacity of 70 MW and an average annual production of 242 GWh. The dam is 900

metres The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

long, 370 metres wide and 80 metres high. The reservoir was planned to have a surface area of 14 km², and a storage capacity of about 400 million m³. It was completed in 2016.

Construction

The Banjë Hydro Power Plant is located near its namesake village, Banjë. It is on the river Devoll. It was completed in 2016. However, construction on it first began sometime in the 1980s. Construction was stopped when the

People's Socialist Republic of Albania The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, () was the Marxist-Leninist state that existed in Albania from 10 January 1946 to the 29 April 1991. Originally founded as the People's Republic of Albania from 1946 to 1976, it was governed by the P ...

went bankrupt. After the Albanian government signed a 35-year concessionary agreement with Statkraft, the project was revived.

Capacity

The power plant has a nominal capacity of 70 MW and an average annual production of 242 GWH.

Dimensions

The dam is

Floating solar plant

Statkraft tested adding floating

solar panels A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

in 2020. This initiative was later completed in 2023. It has a total installed capacity of 2 MWp, with 0.5 MWp in each of the four panels. Each unit has a diameter of 70 metres. The solar panels are mounted onto floating

polyethylene Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging (plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including bott ...

ring pipe and an impermeable membrane. These are anchored on the Banjë Reservoir. Statkraft completely owns the project, although it was built with the help of local

n contractors the Norwegian company Ocean Sun. On June 2021, one of the floating solar panels was partly submerged and severely damaged. A floating solar power plant at an earlier date as well, so Statkraft had to retrieve the solar panel. In the later half of 2021, the companies were planning to add three more solar panels, each with 0.5 MWp each. It is now unknown if the plan to continue with this plan, as they have not yet built it.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banje Hydro Power Plant Hydroelectric power stations in Albania Cërrik