Bulgaria's Rila Monastery Builds Hydro Power Plant with EU Money

Bulgaria's Rila Monastery Builds Hydro Power Plant with EU Money

Sofia News Agency, 02.01.2010

One of Bulgaria’s most popular monasteries, the Rila Monastery, is going to construct a small hydro power plant in order to get a new reliable electricity supply. The entire cost of the project – a EUR 2,9 M grant – is provided by the “Kozloduy International Fund”, and will be administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The new hydro power plant with have a total production capacity of 1,24 MW; the energy which will not be consumed by the the Rila Monastery will be sold, and the funds will be used for renovating its building and improving the monastery infrastructure. The power lines from the power plant to the monastery will run underground in order to protect them from the inclement weather in the Rila Mountain. The document for the realization of the project was singed Thursday by Bulgarian Economy Minister Traicho Traikov, EBRD senior project manager Zoltan Kish, and Bishop Evlogiy, head of the the Rila Monastery. The Rila Monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2008, it welcomed 900 000 visitors.