The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has arranged €40.1m in financing for Elektroprivreda Bosne i Hercegovine (EPBiH) to build two solar power plants on a coal ash landfill site.
The figure includes a €25.1m loan from the EBRD and and a parallel loan of €15m from UniCredit Bank.
Both plants will have a combined capacity of 50MWp, and will be located in the municipality of Gračanica.
The facilities will be the largest solar project developed by the company to date and among its most significant investments in renewable energy, the EBRD said.
As part of the project, the EBRD is supporting a 2050 technical cooperation initiative, in which several 2050 decarbonisation scenarios for EPBiH will be comprehensively assessed, along with their impact on EPBiH’s operations, financial capital requirements, planning, project implementation structures and communication with stakeholders, the EBRD said.
A second technical cooperation initiative will support EPBiH in working with the authorities to introduce new educational standards in the renewable energy field, focused on a just transition in the context of workforce management challenges associated with decarbonisation.
Technical support for the project will come from the Austrian Municipal Infrastructure Fund and the Austrian High-Impact Partnership on Climate Action.