Albania's electricity transmission system has not benefited from significant investments in its expansion or overhaul until the 2000s. In addition, the demand and consumption of electricity have increased, which placed additional strains on the network. In order to help reduce outages, the WBIF allocated a €180,000 EU grant to look into transmission bottlenecks in the Albanian electricity transmission system managed by the national transmission operator OST, with a specific reference to load growth forecasts and planned new generation effects on network topology.
The study was completed in June 2009 by the Infrastructure Project Facility 1. The conclusions were that the transmission network is in critical need of an overhaul to improve electricity supplies, especially in the south of the country, and that investment is long overdue to replace the plant that has exceeded its lifetime and capacity to transmit the required energy.
Fifty projects were identified and screened using multi-criteria analysis which produced a shortlist of 20 priority projects. Of those, twenty are most urgent electricity investment projects, up to 6 projects have been taken through to the feasibility study, either with additional WBIF support or directly via the Lead IFI, KfW.
| WBIF | Grant | TA-ALB-11 | € 180,000 |
| Total | € 180,000 | ||
| Total Grants | € 180,000 | ||
| Total Loans | € 0 | ||
