A group of Italian companies and local authorities have established a consortium to compete for the contract to construct and manage a complex of hydropower plants in Montenegro. The consortium, called Cispel, will bid for plants with an aggregate capacity of 400 MW. The project is worth around $400 million.
The consortium involves the municipalities of Rome, Turin, Milan, Bolzano and Merano, together with the state-owned utility Enel, the Astaldi Group, Rizzani and the Swiss company Depretto-Esherwis. It hopes to compete with companies like Siemens, Mitsubishi and other multinational corporations for the scheme.
Interest from Italian companies in the project is intense because of the prospect of the integration of the Montenegrin network with those of Greece and Albania and – via a projected undersea cable – to that of Italy itself.