Going away for a few days; will post when I get back

I haven't posted anything recently because I have been very busy with various matters.  In addition to my ongoing project of compiling a database of the permitting status of all RES and other construction projects in Calabria, I have been doing a lot of commercial research, whether locating crane dealers in Russia, or locating crane firms and concrete plants in Poland, or tracking down small investment and development companies in Romania, or poring over grid-connection permits and environmental impact assessments of projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I will be departing tomorrow for a trip to Beograd and other places (Bari ð Bar ð Beograd ð Podgorica ð Shkodër  ð Durrës ð Bari).  When I get back I will probably be writing up a few new posts:

1.      Finishing a post on the Tsankov Kamak Hydro Plant (Хидроенергиен проект “Цанков камък”) in Bulgaria, and the problems revolving around Austrian EPC contractor Alpine Bau GmbH.

2.      Writing up something on Bosnia’s first wind “farm”, a single wind turbine which received permits and began feeding into the grid in Bosnia a few months ago.  (As a result neither EP HZHB nor EP BiH in the Federation will be the first in Bosnia and Herzegovina to place wind power onto the electrical grid.  In addition, this means that Bosnia has its first contribution of wind power to the grid before either Serbia or Montenegro.)

3.      Perhaps a post on the curious sole tender for the construction of Block 7 at TPP Tuzla in FBiH, and the battle that is pitting Zijad Džemić and the Bosnian Parliament against Vahid Hećo and the ruling party SBiH (Stranka za Bosnu i Hercegovinu).

4.      I may begin a series of posts commenting on several “guides for investors” for RES that Serbia presented at a conference on 15 November 2010.  Having looked over them a bit, I feel they give the impression that – except for large projects like HPP Brodarevo 1 & 2 on the Lim River, the government-tendered HPPs planned on the Drina and Ibar in Serbia, the solar parks at Nova Crnja (enormous) and Leskovac (tiny), and possibly HPP Đerdap 3 (huge) – the Serbian government does not want new renewable energy generation in Serbia.

5.      If I want to be entertaining, I may even write up a post about some of the problems that have plagued a wind farm that was built this year in Calabria: a car bomb, a torched tractor, damaged vehicles, death threats, bribes, a torched wind turbine, a couple of murders, and so on.

Croatia gas pipeline operator Plinacro plans to install floating LNG terminal

This story would seem to be an exclusive by Igor Ilic, a Reuters correspondent in Zagreb, who appears to have obtained all the information directly from Plinacro and from Croatia’s Ministry of Economy.

Croatia plans to install floating LNG terminal

Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:38pm GMT

* Floating terminal to bridge waiting period for Adria LNG

* Tender for floating terminal expected soon

* Investment worth some 50 mln euros

By Igor Ilic

ZAGREB, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Croatia's state-owned gas pipeline operator Plinacro plans to install a floating terminal for liquefied natural gas as a temporary replacement for a much bigger but delayed Adria LNG project, Plinacro said on Monday….

Maps:

The European Natural Gas Network: Capacities at Cross-Border Points on the Primary Market (June 2010)

Gas LNG Europe LNG Storage Map (June 2010)

International Conference on Power Plants “POWER PLANTS 2010”, October 26-29, 2010, Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia

From October 26 through October 29 the Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia will be holding the international conference “Power Plants 2010” (Међународна конференција “Електране 2010”) at Vrnjačka Banja in central Serbia.

The main sponsors of the conference are Serbia’s Ministry of Mining and Energy, Ministry of Science and Technology Development, Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, and the public power company "Electric Power Industry of Serbia" (EPS).

The conference will be a highly technical get-together primarily for engineers and policy makers from throughout Southeastern Europe (SEE).  A total of 108 papers have been accepted for presentation at the conference; titles and an abstract are available online.  Despite some attention to renewable energy, particularly utility-scale hydroelectric and biomass energy, the vast majority of the papers concern thermal power plants, with especially strong representation by the coal-fired power plants Kolubara and Nikola Tesla.

Conference sessions:

1.       Environmental aspects of power generation (7 papers)

2.       Energy resources and sustainable development (25 papers)

3.       Liberalization of electricity market, and impact on energy efficiency (10 papers)

4.       Power plants life cycle extension, new clean coal technologies  (23 papers)

5.       Thermal, hydro, wind and other power plants (43 papers)

The conference will be held at the Hotel Zvezda, which possesses a conference center that is “(second largest in Serbia) with five halls (1200 seats) with modern audio and video equipment and accessory facilities necessary for the organisation of congresses, conferences and other meetings: concerts and theater performances.”  Vrnjačka Banja is situated between Kraljevo and Kruševac.

Cost: € 200

Languages: English and Serbian

Website

Brochure in English

Maps:

Road map

Topographic map

Town map (Note – North is on the bottom!  The Hotel Zvezda is “1” situated in square J8):

Wind – Serbia – Construction to begin in March 2011 on Wind Park Vršac-Alibunar-Plandište

On 11 October the firm Energowind gave a presentation in the municipality of Plandište regarding its updated plans for a wind park in the southeastern part of Serbia’s Vojvodina region, near the country’s border with Romania.

Having obtained the necessary permits – 45 in all – and leased 50 land parcels from landowners for 25 years, Energowind expects to begin construction in March 2011.  Consisting of 35-50 wind turbines, the wind park will have a total capacity of 110 MW, and will cost an estimated € 150 mln to build.  It will be located in the villages of Velika Greda, Jermenovci, and Barice within the municipality of Plandište.  On 12 October the company formed “Wind Park Plandište d.o.o.”, a 100%-owned subsidiary within the municipality of Plandište, in order to facilitate payments to the municipality.

Energowind was founded in Vršac in 2005 and is owned by holding companies in the British Virgin Islands (83.3%) and the United States (16.7%). 

In late 2007 Energowind signed cooperation agreements with the municipalities of Vršac, Alibunar, Bela Crkva, and Plandište on a “joint approach in use of all forms of renewable energy, including wind.”  The firm received in October 2009 a national energy permit to construct a 400 MW wind park in Vršac, Alibunar, and Plandište, at an expected cost of € 543 million.  The company has not stated whether the 110 MW Plandište wind park is intended to be just the first phase of the entire 400 MW park, or if plans for the remainder of the park have been put on hold or abandoned.

As of August 2010 a total of nine 2-year energy permits had been granted for wind parks in Serbia, but to date no reports of actual construction have surfaced, so the Plandište wind park could become the first in Serbia.  News of actual wind park construction is also lacking from neighboring Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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COMPANY DATA:

1) Energowind d.o.o.

Bulevar Oslobođenja 3, 26300 Vršac, Srbija

Tel.: 013-807454

Board of Directors:

  Chairman: Branislav Matić

  Director: Dimitrije Vukčević

Manager: Petar Slijepčević, petar.slijepcevic@energowind.rs

Head of Operations: Maja Turković

Website: www.energowind.rs (under construction)

Founded: 2005-12-05

Paid-In Capital: 68.200.000,00 EUR

Registry Code: 20107901

PIB (VAT): 104183426

Shareholders:

  Original Solution Corp., Tortola, British Virgin Islands: 44.0%

  Wind Energy Investment Corp., Tortola, British Virgin Islands: 22.6%

  Asporta Limited BVI, Tortola, British Virgin Islands: 16.7%

  Wind Power Co., Wilmington, Delaware, USA: 16.7%

Results for 2009:

  Total capital: 6.396.440.000 RSD  (€ 66.000.000)

  Operating income: 2.145.000 RSD (€ 22.150)

  Profit: 832.000 RSD (€ 8.590)

  Net profit: 412.000 RSD (€ 4.250)

  Employees: 2

2) Wind Park Plandište d.o.o.

Laudonovac BB, 26364 Margita, Srbija

Director: Maja Turković

Founded: 2010-10-12

Paid-In Capital: 500 EUR

Registry Code: 20683066

PIB (VAT): 106799658

Shareholder:

  Energowind d.o.o., Vršac: 100%

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REFERENCE:

2007-12-04: “Српски потенцијал за енергију ветра”

http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Srbija/t49813.sr.html

2008-02: “Independence of the region with respect of energy based on local renewable sources or what is the similarity between the southern Banat and Gising region”, by Miroslav Kopečni, PhD, CESS Magazine, n° 4, February 2008, pp. 8-10.

http://www.vojvodina-cess.org/document.php?fileid=297&m=2&f=b16e559bff6cafd0585ad06474b50636&attachment=1&c=201 (English)

2008-11: “Obnovljivi Izvori Energije – Vetar”, by Tomislav Papić.  (On p. 9 there is a map of planned wind parks in the Vojvodina region.)

http://www.psemr.vojvodina.gov.rs/prezentacijeSajam2008/Vetar/Obnovljivi%20izvori%20energije%20T.Papic.ppt

2009-10-07: Project is granted energy license no. 312-01-00588/2009-02

http://www.ssl-link.com/mre/cms/mestoZaUploadFajlove/registar20102009.pdf, p. 82

2010-02-16: “Wind farm in Plandište as well - Energowind signed 45 contracts with parcel owners”

http://www.ekapija.com/website/sr/page/293735_en

2010-06-01: Republic Agency for Spatial Planning makes decisions regarding minor modifications to Energowind’s planning request for wind park at Plandište

http://www.rapp.gov.rs/media/Izvestaj%20JU%202.pdf, p. 33

2010-08: “List of Issued Energy Permits – Wind Farms - August 2010”

http://www.ssl-link.com/mre/cms/mestoZaUploadFajlove/List_of_issued_energy_permits_-_wind-aug2010.pdf

2010-10-08: “Prezentacija ENERGOWIND-a”

http://plandiste-opstina.rs/razno/prezentacija-energowind-a/

2010-10-12: “Prvi kilovati od vetra krajem 2011. godine”

http://plandiste-opstina.rs/razno/prvi-kilovati-od-vetra-krajem-2011-godine/

2010-10-11: “’Zeleni’ kilovati - Prvi vetroparkovi u Sbiji narednog proleća u Plandištu. Zakupljeno 50 parcela. Investicija 150 miliona evra”

http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/aktuelno.69.html:303398-Zeleni-kilovati

2010-10-12: “Za izgradnju vetroparka još najmanje 45 dozvola”

http://seebiz.eu/sr/kompanije/energetika/za-izgradnju-vetroparka-jos-najmanje-45-dozvola,94855.html

2010-10-12: Company “Wind Park Plandište d.o.o.” founded

http://pretraga.apr.gov.rs/RepsisPublicSite/Public/Enterprise/BasicData.aspx?BusinessEntityId=4192254&RegistryCode=20683066

Map of wind energy potential in Serbia in January and July

http://195.250.98.80/media/New%20Folder/Zracenje%20sunca%20i%20energija%20vetra-tem.JPG