Should Macedonia construct a large hydropower plant?

[Daskalot]

I read this article over at MINA:

One century since the beginning of electricity production in Macedonia

Thursday, 05 November 2009

Today two very important jubilees were marked in Debar. The electricity production in Macedonian celebrates its 100th anniversary and the hydro plant Spilje its 40th.

At the ceremony the General Manager of ELEM, Vlatko Cingovski, talked about the time 100 years ago when the first kilowatts of electricity were produced in Macedonia, about the production capacity that we have today, and also about the priorities and obligations in the upcoming period.

The hydro plant Spilje which at the beginning produced one third of the total electricity production in Macedonia produced 10,600 GWh of electricity in the last 4 decades.
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/9007/55/

And it got me wondering why Macedonia does not build a large hydropower plant somewhere on the stretch of the Vardar river.

As it is today the Republic of Macedonia derives most of its power from Thermal plants ie coal burning plants.

Here are some statistics, in the first view you can see the data from the Thermal plants 82.1-90.2%, in the second you can see the production of electricity in the Hydroelectric plants, 9.8-17.9%:

Electricity Production in Thermal Plants
Year Data Source Value Notes
2003 U.S. DOE (2005) 83.7 % of total (provisional)
2002 U.S. DOE (2005) 87.0 % of total -
2002 IEA (2005) 87.6 % of total -
2001 U.S. DOE (2005) 89.7 % of total -
2001 IEA (2004) 90.2 % of total -
2001 World Factbook (2004) 83.7 % of total -
2000 U.S. DOE (2005) 82.1 % of tota
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/...a/MK-elpt.html

Electricity Production in Hydroelectric Plants
Year Data Source Value Notes
2003 U.S. DOE (2005) 16.3 % of total (provisional)
2002 U.S. DOE (2005) 13.0 % of total -
2002 IEA (2005) 12.4 % of total -
2001 U.S. DOE (2005) 10.3 % of total -
2001 IEA (2004) 9.8 % of total -
2001 World Factbook (2004) 16.3 % of total -
2000 U.S. DOE (2005) 17.9 % of total -
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/...a/MK-elph.html

To burn coal to produce power is not a sustainable way of producing electrical power but if Macedonia were to build a large dam in the lower regions of the Vardar, such a power plant would produce a lot of renewable electricity for many years into the future.

The Republic has many rivers why not use them for a good purpose instead of using them as sewer pipes.

Macedonia has other advantages as well in renewable energy production such as mountains, many sun hours a year, etc. why not use them?

[Prolet]

Well Said Daskale

I think the Boskov Most project is also up for Grabs, as of next year there are alot of companies interested in building these energy plants. They want to clean up the Vardar river and make it deeper with cascades then they will look to build plants.

Isnt Ovche Pole getting a solar plant??

[George S.]

i can't see why not.If they have the money it's the right thing to do imagine the savings
for the future.They can't keep burning coal all the time.