The Albanian Power Corporation has opened a new public procurement procedure worth over 1.89 billion lek, or about 20.1 million euros, which aims to maintain two floating power plants anchored in the Triport area of Vlora. The tender, which is being planned at the peak of the summer season and away from public attention, further deepens the financial bill for two plants that have so far entered little or no operation in the country, as their costs increase every day.
The two floating platforms, known as "Tigri 1" and "Tigri 2", arrived in Albania in September 2022 with the promise of covering up to 15% of the country's energy needs with a capacity of 110 megawatts. However, according to official data from the Energy Regulatory Authority for 2025, the two ships produced only 77 gigawatts of energy, which accounts for less than 1% of the country's total production.
Despite this almost zero yield, the bills that the Albanian state pays from its budget remain staggering. KESH pays $60,000 per day to the American company "Excelerate Energy" for the ships that have not yet been fully tested, as well as another $30,000 per day to the Italian company "Renco" for generation services. By the end of last year, the bills paid by the state just for bringing them in and putting them into operation reached the figure of 62.8 million euros, while the cost of production reached 151 euros per megawatt.
As if this were not enough, in the same area where the two floating platforms that have begun to show the first technical problems are accommodated, the Vlora land-based TEC has also been preserved for years. This is another project with an initial cost of 130 million euros, to keep which the state continues to pay millions of euros more, creating a double financial hole in the energy sector.
The latest move for the 20-million tender comes shortly after the appointment of Viola Haxhiademi, former Secretary General of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy during the time the department was headed by Belinda Balluku, as head of KESH. Haxhiademi, known as one of the former deputy prime minister's trusted people, has been the subject of BKH investigators after they conducted searches in her apartment and she herself has appeared before SPAK to testify as part of the ongoing investigations against former deputy prime minister, Belinda Balluku.
Meanwhile, the entire history of floating TPPs is now under investigation by the Special Prosecution Office. The Chairman of the DP Parliamentary Group, Gazment Bardhi, in February 2025 filed a criminal complaint with SPAK, describing this project as an abusive scheme similar to that of incinerators, with a damage of 80 million euros. According to the opposition, the declaration of the energy emergency in October 2021 was made artificially and without notifying the real shortages, with the aim of predetermining the winner and wasting public funds, not supplying citizens with electricity.
Thus, while Albanian citizens face sky-high energy bills and perpetual promises of "energy independence," the state budget continues to pour millions of euros into two rusting ships that produce more cost than light. At the end of the day, the balance of this "adventure" remains as absurd as it is tragic for taxpayers, millions of euros spent to pay the rent of ships that don't work, millions more for the maintenance of plants that never turn on.
