Most economies in the Western Balkans do not have the gas transmission infrastructure as the one that can be found in the rest of Europe. Much power and heat generation has been based on old, inefficient systems that often use fuels (e.g. lignite coal) and produce high levels of CO2, NOx, SOx and dust emissions.
As a response, all economies have been actively pursuing energy diversification. In this process, natural gas plays a major role as a cleaner and more efficient energy source. North Macedonia has embarked on a programme to connect major gas demand centres or anchor loads through a transmission network with Europe's priority transnational pipelines: TAP, TANAP, IAP and South Stream.
WBIF has provided a grant for technical assistance to help advance a pipe network of 371 km in North Macedonia. The assistance was focused on the review of the existing national Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) in order to identify and correct the existing gaps to reach full compliance with an international standard ESIA and meet the IFI's requirements.
