The Administrative Court ruled that the project for the construction of hydropower plant Mokrice on the Sava river cannot get a building permit until it has ruled on legal action brought against the project by the Slovenian Native Fish Society.
The Native Fish Society said that the court ruling is very important because it blocked the investors’ plan to obtain a partial building permit from the Ministry and Spatial Planning and start with the plant’s construction despite their legal challenge.
This is the second time that the Slovenian Native Fish Society is challenging the project after the former government decided that the public interest of producing renewable energy overrides the public interest of nature conservation in the HPP Mokrice project. In late 2021, the Administrative Court overturned the Ministry’s original decision of December 2020 on the grounds that the environmental impact assessment procedure must be completed before the public interest procedure may by initiated.
HPP Mokrice project envisages that the new 28.05 MW HPP should have water inflow of 500 cubic meters per second and that its annual electricity generation should amount to 128 GWh. Estimated cost of the project is around 177 million euros. The construction was supposed to start by the end of 2019 and the plant should have been completed in mid-2022. In September 2017, 45 MW HPP Brezice, fourth of the five planned HPPs in the lower Sava project, has been officially commissioned.
In 2020, HESS, a subsidiary of state-owned HSE, signed a 19 million euros worth contract with local company Litostroj Power, owned by Czech Energo- Pro, on the supply of equipment for HPP Mokrice project.
