In order to complete the infrastructure at hydropower plant Brezice on the river Sava, the Slovenian government has approved additional funds in the amount of 12.7 million euros and extended the deadline for the completion of works until the end of summer 2022. The unfinished infrastructure that needs to be completed is related to environmental protection measures as well as flood defence on several Sava tributaries.
In addition, it also necessary to reinforce the piers on the road bridges over the Sava and deepen the riverbed in the area in question. The activities to remediate construction impacts which proved to be inadequate during the environmental impact monitoring are also pending. The allocated funding is also intended for buying the rest of the land needed to build all the unfinished infrastructure and facilities.
45 MW HPP Brezice, fourth of the five planned HPPs in the lower Sava project, has been commissioned in 2017. The construction started in 2014 and the project’s cost amounted to 260 million euro. The plant is a part of the Lower Sava river cascade project which envisages the construction of five run-of-river HPPs, which overall output should be 187 MW, where annual generation should reach 720 GWh. HPP Brezice is the largest of the five, with annual electricity generation of 161 GWh. The total cost of the construction of HPP Brezice will amount to 240 million euros and it will provide about 1 % of total electricity produced in Slovenia. The plant is operated by HESS, a subsidiary of state-owned energy company HSE.
