The Montenegrin Ministry of Economy announced that the tender for the construction of the solar power plant at Velje Brdo site is expected to be initiated by the end of the year. This project, alongside solar power plant on Briska Gora and the wind power plants Gvozd and Brajići, is expected to have a strong impact on the recovery of Montenegrin economy.
According to the statement of the Ministry, the subject tender procedure was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, whereas the initial projections were that tender procedure should officially commence in the third quarter of 2020.
As it was initially determined, Velje Brdo is suitable for the construction of a solar power plant with an installed capacity of 50MW, but that the potential investor pointed out that Velje Brdo site actually has a significantly higher potential for the exploitation of solar energy than the planned 50MW. The potential the investors pointed out ranges from 150 to 300MW. Such capacity of the future solar power plant is quite significant, considering that currently installed capacity of all power plants in Montenegro is about a thousand megawatts.
This will be the first solar power plant in Podgorica, which has been announced since 2016, when the company “Montenegro renewable energy” signed a contract with the former mayor of Podgorica Slavoljub Stijepović to make a study of the location. However, “SZ Green Energy” actually executed the study of the location, which was mentioned as a potential investor back in 2016.
The founder of “SZ Green Energy” is a German company “S&Z Energie Systeme” that deals with the design and construction of solar power plants and has offices in Italy, Lebanon, Albania and Montenegro. The official website of the company states they made plans for several solar power plants of different sizes in cooperation with the Government in Montenegro during the next year and a half.
In addition, initial decision to make a local site study “Velje Brdo-solar power plant” was made by the mayor of Podgorica in April 2016. It was specified that area covers about 69 hectares within the cadastral municipality of Velje Brdo, and 152,000 solar modules were planned to be set out.
