Thursday, November 25, 2010

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 проектЦанков 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.