The first wind power plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) became operational eight years after the start of construct was announced on the Mesihovina hill near Tomislavgrad.
The wind farm is made up of 22 windmills with generators producing more than 165 Gigawatt hours of electricity a year. This is one tenth of the electricity produced by its Mostar-based owner, the electricity generator and supplier EP HZHB.
The project has cost around €82 million. The bulk of it was secured through a loan from the German Development Bank (KfW) which signed a loan contract with EP HZHB worth around €72 million in 2010. The bank also gave €1 million as a grant and EP HZHB provided the remaining money.
The wind farm was supposed to become operational by the end of 2013 and would start paying back the loan. However, due to public procurement issues, the bank agreed to prolong a grace period until the end of 2015.
In 2016, the project finally got its start when EP HZHB and consortium Siemens Wind Power A/S Denmark and Siemens Wind Power LLC Croatia signed a contract about the procurement, delivery and construction of 22 wind turbines worth around €72 million.
The Mesihovina Project was introduced to the public in 2006, and a concession contract with Canton 10 was signed three years later. In 2010 the then president of the BiH Federation Borjana Krišto from Croatian Democratic Union BiH, broke ground for the project on the windy promontory above the Duvno Meadows. After the new management was installed in EP HZHB, led by managers from Croatian opposition parties, the original site was neglected and the project was slowed down.
