For a small country in the Balkans, Kosovo has a cadre of ambitious and talented youth ready to tackle the country’s biggest development challenges. Among the most critical challenges for long term growth is the security of electricity supply. Today, 90 percent of Kosovo’s electricity is derived from two obsolete, lignite-fired coal power plants. The country has embraced a goal of 35% of its electricity coming from renewable energy by 2031 and to be on a long-term decarbonization pathway by 2050.
Kosovo’s Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning, and Infrastructure (MESPI) recently enlisted four young interns from USAID’s Energy Sustainability Activity to help them collect and publish data for potential renewable energy investors. The Government of Kosovo, which is driving the country’s energy transition, needs the private sector to invest in renewable energy development activities.
The USAID interns are helping to identify and categorize all public lands and map areas that could be used for the development of large-scale solar and wind energy. They will then publish the data in an open-access geo-portal to inform renewable energy developers’ decisions about promising wind and solar projects.
The interns embedded at MESPI are doing “an excellent job assisting the Ministry in generating much needed missing geospatial data,” according to MESPI’s Geographic Information System Division Head Rizah Murseli.
USAID’s internship program aims to build a strong energy sector workforce that is prepared to usher in the country’s new National Energy Strategy. By teaching these young professionals how to build Kosovo’s renewable energy infrastructure today, they will become the leaders who turn that ambitious decarbonization pathway into a reality by 2050.
TetraTech for USAIDKosovo