On the Government's short list of priority infrastructure projects in the field of energy, the project Utilization of hydro potential and water management of the Drina, Piva, Tara, Ćehotina, Lim, Ibar and Morača basins is in the first place, but, as claimed by the Ministry of Economy, there are no initiatives for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant ( HPP) Buk Bijela and the sinking of Tara.
The Ministry explained that this project is the first on the priority list due to the fact that it is a unique basin of five rivers whose hydro potential belongs not only to Montenegro, but also to other countries in the region.
As they explained, it is a regional project whose purpose is to comprehensively assess the hydro potential of five rivers, that is, the possibilities for their use and water management.
"This by no means means the construction of hydroelectric power plants on each of the rivers. On the contrary, the project involves searching for an optimal solution for using the hydro potential of the entire basin, while respecting the already established restrictions, the most important of which is the Parliamentary Declaration on the Protection of Tara. Therefore, the mentioned project from the list of priority infrastructure projects does not call into question the Declaration that has been in force since 2004, and in accordance with that, there are no initiatives by the Government of Montenegro for the construction of HPP Buk-Bijela", said the Ministry headed by Minister of Economy Dragica Sekulić.
They believe that, bearing in mind that it is about the enormous energy potential of the basin of five rivers, which touches several countries, regional cooperation is of key importance.
"In this sense, the support of the European Union, which through its previous support has recognized the importance of regional projects, would be extremely important, which is the reason why a project of this type should be on the list of projects for which support will be requested through grants or EU funds. such as the Western Investment Framework (WBIF)," the Ministry said.
The idea of building HPP Buk Bijela is half a century old and has been stopped several times. The construction of Buk Bijela was almost certain about 50 years ago, when the land from Kopil to Šćepan Polje was expropriated at the same time. The then Parliament of Montenegro refused to sign the agreement on the 70 million dollars loan for that project from the World Bank.
Plans for damming the Drina were updated again in 2004, when representatives of the RS and Montenegro signed an agreement on the construction of the Buk Bijela, but the Montenegrin partners gave up under pressure from the public, which opposed the sinking of the Tara. The declaration on the protection of Tara was signed by almost 11 thousand citizens and it was on the agenda of the Assembly. In mid-December 2004, the Parliament adopted a Declaration prohibiting the construction of Buk Bijela. The declaration was supported by 35 MPs from the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist People's Party, the Liberal Alliance, the Democratic Union of Albanians and the Democratic Alliance in Montenegro, while 29 MPs from the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists were against the document.
The Buk Bijela reservoir was supposed to submerge the valley up to the Piva power plant dam and 12 kilometers of Tara upstream from Šćepan Polje. It was planned to build hydropower plants Buk Bijela, with a capacity of 450 megawatts, and Srbinje, with a capacity of 50,5 megawatts.
Republika Srpska has restarted the Buk Bijela hydroelectric power plant (HE) project. In Trebinje, at the beginning of June last year, a contract was signed on the award of a concession for the construction and use of HPP Buk Bijela on the Drina River. The concession was granted for 50 years to Elektroprivreda RS (ERS) and Hydroelectric Power Plants on the Drina from Višegrad.
After that, on July 6, 2017, the Government of RS and the Chinese company China National Aero-Technology International Engineering Corporation (AVIC-ENG) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on the Buk Bijela construction project.
The plan is to build Buk Bijela, with an installed capacity of 93,52 MW, on the Drina in the southeast of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The project is worth about 195,1 million euros, and the HPP will be built on the upper reaches of the Drina, about 11 kilometers upstream from the new bridge in Foča.
Bonus video:
