PPC bids for North Macedonia’s Cebren hydropower plant

Power utility PPC is among ten international bidding teams from the energy and construction domains that have submitted pre-qualification offers to a tender for North Macedonia’s prospective Cebren hydropower plant, an investment expected to require at least 500 to 600 million euros.

This preliminary stage of the tender concerns water usage licensing rights for hydropower output at the neighboring country’s Crna Reka river. Preliminary bids were opened yesterday.

A related committee to soon be assembled by the North Macedonian government will examine whether the bids submitted fully meet the tender’s requirements before qualifiers are invited to a second round for offers concerning the project’s development in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with state-owned power producer ESM.

Besides PPC, which has teamed up with energy and construction firm Archirodon, the other nine bids were submitted by: EVN-Verbund (Austria); Gezhouba Group China (China); Power Construction Corporation of China (China); EDF (France); Eiffage-Waterlu-Andritz-Norconsult (France, Austria); Webuild SPA Italia-Salini (Italy); Cobra-Cobra Hidraulika (Spain); ENKA-COLIN (Turkey); and Ozaltin-Yapi Merkezi (Turkey).

The North Macedonian government plans to commission a consultant for preparations concerning the tender’s second round.

In previous years, more than ten tenders have been staged for the construction and operation of the Cebren hydropower plant, but all efforts have proved fruitless, for a variety of reasons.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s administration has noted that a serious effort is being made for the project’s development, ascertaining the current tender will be successfully completed.

It is planned to offer an installed capacity of between 333 and 458 MW for annual electricity production of 1,000 to 1,200 GWh.