Prishtina, 14 October 2026
Honourable Minister of Economy, Ms Artane Rizvanolli,
Honourable MCC Country Director in Kosovo, Mr Rinor Gjonbalaj,
Honourable Chair, Mr Bujar Haxha,
Distinguished members of the Board,
Honourable MCA-Kosovo CEO, Ms Florina Duli-Sefaj,
Distinguished representatives of the MCC,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We have KEK and Ibër-Lepenc, which generate electricity. We have KOSTT, which transmits it. Now we also have the Energy Storage Corporation, ESC, which will store energy for the hours when it is needed most. With this new publicly owned enterprise, we are adding a capability that our energy system has lacked.
From the very beginning, when developing the Compact Program with our American partners, we worked to ensure that the investment in batteries would be accompanied by the establishment of an enterprise to own and manage them. Following the signing of the agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), we also established ESC. Today, with the first meeting of the Board, we are continuing our work to prepare the enterprise for operation.
ESC is wholly owned by the Republic of Kosovo. It is therefore a shared asset belonging to all our citizens. We protect public assets by managing them well and increasing their value. Our public enterprises must succeed, create economic value and put that value at the service of citizens’ well-being. This is the approach we are taking with ESC as well.
The Compact Program has a total value of $236.7 million, of which $202 million is a grant from the United States of America through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, while $34.7 million is a contribution from the Government of the Republic. It is a joint investment in energy security and Kosovo’s long-term development.
ESC will own and operate the batteries in Istog, with a power capacity of 125 megawatts and an energy storage capacity of 250 megawatt-hours. Together with KOSTT’s 90-megawatt-hour system in Ferizaj, our country will have an additional 340 megawatt-hours of publicly owned energy storage capacity.
In practice, this means storing energy when we have a surplus and feeding it back into the grid when demand increases. In this way, we reduce the need for imports during peak hours and help balance the system.
Distinguished members of the Board,
Your experience in the energy sector, finance, law and administration, both at home and abroad, is invaluable. We expect you to build this enterprise on merit-based recruitment, professional decision-making and institutional accountability. New technology must be matched by good governance. We owe the citizens, to whom this enterprise belongs, accountability for every decision.
I thank Minister Rizvanolli and the team at the Ministry of Economy, as well as the MCC and MCA-Kosovo, for our joint efforts. We express our gratitude to the Government and people of the United States for their continued support for the development of the Republic of Kosovo.
I wish you every success in your work and hope that the enterprise will provide the highest-quality service to all citizens of Kosovo, without distinction.
Thank you for the invitation and your attention!