Albania’s state-owned energy corporation KESH said on Tuesday it has opened tender procedures for the upgrade of the monitoring systems at three of the hydropower plants (HPPs) it operates along the Drin cascade: Fierze, Koman, and Vau i Dejës.

The budget for the six-month implementation contract, along with a three-year maintenance agreement, is estimated at Lek 250 million (Dollar 2.7 million/Euro 2.5 million), KESH said in a tender notice. The tender’s winner will be required to upgrade automatic data-gathering systems, by conducting diagnostics of existing systems and supplying and installing new equipment and software. Offers can be submitted until August 6.

Albania has a big hydro-energetic potential and only 35.4% of it is being used so far. The country has a total installed capacity of 1466 MW and marks an average hydropower production of 5283 GW/h.

The total hydro-energetic reserves enable the installation of a 4500MW power network and its annual electric power production could reach up to 16TWh.

There are 253 concessionary contracts in process with a total capacity of 1,998 MW Albanian hydrographical territory is 44, 000 km2 or 57% larger than its geographical territory, taking into consideration the catchment area of the rivers. The country has eight main rivers: Drin, Buna, Vjosa, Semani, Mati, Shkumbini, Ishmi and Erzeni.