North Macedonian state-owned electric company Elektrani na Severna Makedonija (ESM) will tender another 60 MW of PV capacity in the first quarter of the year.

North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev made the announcement on his Facebook account.

The tendered project is expected to be built at a cost of around €35 million, Zaev said, without providing further details.

He revealed, however, that around 62.5 MW of the three solar plants totaling 110 MW tendered in 2020 are already grid-connected. The three plants are all located at the former Oslomej coal power plant near Ki?evo, in the west of the country. One, tendered in April 2019, has a capacity of 10 MW and is already operational. Construction of that plant was assigned to Turkish contractor Girishim Electric.

The other two 50 MW facilities were tendered in February. The plan to convert the now closed 125 MW capacity coal plant to solar was announced by ESM in September.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, North Macedonia had only 26 MW of installed solar power at the end of 2019. Thermal power plants account for 842 MW of North Macedonia’s total power generation capacity of 1.41 GW, with hydroelectricity and wind accounting for 553.6 MW and 36.8 MW, respectively.

This article is reproduced at www.pv-magazine.com