of one of the key energy projects in the country, and the return to big hydropower projects almost 50 years after the construction of the Piva hydropower plant, energy minister Admir Sahmanovic said in a statement on Thursday.
The project is managed by Montenegro’s majority state-owned power utility EPCG, which hired Jaroslav Cerni in late 2024 to draw the design and carry out the detailed geological research for the project. EPCG said at the time that the Krusevo plant is planned to be constructed downstream from the existing 342 MW Piva hydropower plant on the Piva River.
In particular, the hydropower plant is planned to be built at the Gornje Krusevo site, near the country’s northern border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The estimated annual production of the plant will be 170 GWh.
In December, the government adopted a list of 15 priority energy projects worth a combined 1.38 billion euro ($1.61 billion) that have applied to receive funding under the European Union's Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) in the 2024-2027 period. Among the proposals is the 160 million euro Krusevo hydropower plant project, the government has said.
Apart from Piva, EPCG also runs the only other big hydropower plant in the country - the 307 MW Perucica plant which uses the waters of the Gornja Zeta river in the western municipality of Niksic to produce electricity. Both plants typically generate about a half of the electricity consumed in Montenegro. The remainder is produced by the sole thermal power plant in the country - TE Pljevlja, and by the growing number of wind and solar energy sources.
(SeeNews, October 17, 2025)