Annual meeting of European Dam Safety Authorities (EDSAN) in Tirana, 18-20 June 2024
On June 18-20, 2024, the annual meeting of representatives of the European Dam Safety Authority Network (EDSAN) was organized in Tirana.
EDSAN is a network of State Authorities that exercise security control and monitoring of dams in European countries. These authorities are the main institutions of their countries in the dam sector and exercise state control in terms of the safety and condition of the dams according to the legislation in their countries.
This meeting is attended by representatives of the Dam Safety Authorities in Europe from nearly 12 countries such as Austria, England, Germany, Greece, Norway, Finland, Sweden, France, Italy, Switzerland, Romania, and Albania.
The meeting was organized in the form of a round table where, on the first day, some main issues were presented in
dam sector as follows:
- News and Highlights during 2023 in the sector of state control and monitoring of dams.
- Control and monitoring of small dams with high risks
On the second day, a work visit was organized to the Devoll River cascade dams, HPP Banje dam, and HPP Moglice dam as well as the Farka dam and Tirana artificial lake dam. During these visits, they saw the condition of these dams. Also, the participants have seen the process of monitoring the large dams of the Devoll River cascade by the specialists of the Operator of these dams, Devolli HP
On the third day, the meeting continued with presentations and discussions on the second issue mentioned above, as well as on the issues and technical standards needed in the field of design and installation of photovoltaic plants in dams and in the reservoirs created by them.
At the end of the meeting, the conclusions and results achieved were given, where the participants highlighted the high quality of the discussions by all the participants, the very good organization of the meeting by ALBCOLD as well as the lessons learned during the field visits and presentations by the representatives of all the participating authorities.
During this three-day meeting, more than 30 presentations were made by the participants, where not only the issues with the monitoring and safety of dams in Europe were discussed, but also the improvements that should be made in the legal and institutional framework in the dam sector, as well as the work to advance developments in the direction of modern and real-time monitoring of dams as well as the trends that are being observed in Europe for the use of dams and reservoirs created by them as great potential for the installation of photovoltaic plants.
At the end of the three-day meeting, it was agreed that the 2025 annual meeting would be organized in Switzerland in June 2025.
