While we are waiting for the Ministry of Economy to publish the Draft Strategy for Energy Development in Republic of Macedonia, for which in January this year a contract with the Macedonian Academy of Science and Arts was signed, here is a real inspiration:

In March 2007, in SEVILLE, Spain, Europe's first commercial concentrating solar power plant was inaugurated. Also known as PS10, the project produces electricity with 624 large movable mirrors called heliostats. PS10 is the first of a set of solar electric power generation plants to be constructed in the same area that will total more than 300 MW by 2013. When completed, the Sanlucar la Mayor Solar Platform will produce enough energy to cover the consumption of some 180,000 homes, equivalent to the needs of the city of Seville. The entire project requires an investment of 1.2 billion euro. The investment required to build the concentrating solar power plant amounted to €35 million. When complete, the Sanlucar la Mayor Solar Platform will prevent the emission of more than 600,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

source: Environment News Service

In Macedonia, until now, the solar power has not being even symbolically used for electricity production. We are very happy that the private company Sieto from Skopje announced that these days will open the first mini solar power plant in Macedonia.

We send our sincere compliments to this pioneer company and we hope that the Macedonian scientists who worked on the Strategy were thinking in this direction too.

To compare – Seville area has a similar number of sunny days per year as Macedonia, around 300. Unlike Spain, Macedonia is on the list of Non-Annex countries to Kyoto Protocol, which means that our country is eligible for CDM projects. In a time of a domestic energy crises and a global combat against climate change, it is really disappointing that this combination of huge solar potential and funding possibilities is not being used at all.

We expect that the Strategy will finally “move” things in the right direction.