The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing a sovereign-guaranteed loan of up to 37 million euros to Elektrani na Severna Makedonija (ESM), North Macedonia’s state-owned electricity generation utility, to finance the development, construction and operation of a 134-megawatt (MW) solar plant at the site of an exhausted coal mine in Bitola. The loan will be provided alongside a 50-million-euro sovereign-guaranteed loan from German development bank KfW, marking the first joint financing by the two institutions.
The Bitola 3 Solar Power Plant is a flagship project under the Just Energy Transition Investment Platform (JETIP), launched by North Macedonia at COP28 in 2023 with critical technical leadership from the EBRD. JETIP aims to mobilise up to 3 billion euros in investments and deliver technical and policy support to deploy 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable capacity by 2030, ensuring a just transition for coal-dependent communities.
The plant is expected to generate 180.9 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of renewable electricity annually and reduce North Macedonia’s CO2 emissions by approximately 134,000 tonnes per year. The country’s ambition is to phase out coal and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82 per cent by 2030 under the National Energy and Climate Plan and updated Nationally Determined Contributions.
Beyond infrastructure, the project will promote improvements in ESM’s corporate governance by providing training and helping enhance anti-corruption practices and policies. These measures will lay the foundation for ESM’s newly established internal compliance function.
“Today, we are opening bids to select contractors for photovoltaic power plants Oslomej 2 and Bitola 1, and intensive work is underway on implementing the second phase of the Bogdanci wind park,” said Lazo Uzunčev, General Manager of ESM. “Through all these projects, including Bitola 3, we will increase domestic production from renewables by more than 200 MW in the next two to three years.”
The EBRD is a major institutional investor in North Macedonia, having invested over 3 billion euros in more than 200 projects across the country.