Bankwatch

Home > Publication search results

Publication search results

Slovenia’s shoddy Šoštanj 6 busts the myth of cheap lignite power

Bankwatch Mail | 20 March, 2014 | Download PDF

Bankwatch has been monitoring and campaigning against the ill-conceived EBRD- and EIB-financed Unit 6 at Šoštanj in Slovenia for several years now. Yet the project never ceases to amaze with its myriad flaws and scandals – and the first few months of 2014 have been no exception.


Oil casts long shadow over local people in Albania

Bankwatch Mail | 20 March, 2014 | Download PDF

Local development and investments in resource extraction rarely go together hand in hand. Bankwatch’s Media coordinator David Hoffman reports back on a recent visit to the EBRD sponsored Patos Marinza oil field in Albania. The case provides valuable lessons for the current revision of the EBRD’s safeguard policies.


Three companies shortlisted for Montenegro lignite plant – but Pljevlja needs a clean-up, not more pollution

Bankwatch Mail | 20 March, 2014 | Download PDF

Pljevlja’s 210 MW lignite power plant, operating since 1982 in northern Montenegro, has caused controversy since the beginning of its lifetime. Even back in late ’70s Yugoslavia when the project was being planned, residents succeeded in pressing for the chimney to be taller than planned (250 metres instead of 200 metres) in an attempt to ensure that the plant’s pollution rose above the hills surrounding Pljevlja and dispersed further away.


Bosnia and Herzegovina lignite project triggers official complaint to the Energy Community

Bankwatch Mail | 20 March, 2014 | Download PDF

While governments in south-east Europe have been talking about building new lignite power plants for years, the only one under construction to date is Energy Financing Team’s (EFT) 300 MW Stanari plant in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Rather than serving as an inspiration to others in the region, the project is an example of what not to do, as borne out by an official complaint submitted in January by NGOs Center for Environment from Banja Luka and ClientEarth to the Vienna-based Energy Community Treaty secretariat.


Where’s Plan B for Kosovo’s energy sector?

Bankwatch Mail | 20 March, 2014 | Download PDF

Ideas about the construction of a new lignite power plant in Kosovo have existed since the end of the 1980s, and even the current Kosova e Re proposal – scaled down to 600 MW from the original 2100 MW – has been around since 2009. It is being touted by the Kosovo government, the World Bank, USAID and the European Commission among others as the only realistic option to replace the ageing and heavily polluting Kosovo A power plant.