In the last decade changes in Albania?s demographics have resulted in a full-scale development boom throughout the country, particularly in its cities, where shoddy communist-era housing in urban centers is being replaced with new apartment buildings. The population in the capital city of Tirana has grown from 200,000 to over 600,000, as citizens who were formerly restricted as to where they could live have flocked there for economic opportunity. Nearly seventy percent of the population now lives in Albania?s cities.

Albania's energy infrastructure has been unable to keep pace with surging demand. According to some estimates, consumption outstrips productive capacity by 1.5 billion kilowatt hours per year. More than ninety five percent of country's electricity is generated by hydropower.

Market forces as well as the new requirements of the building code regarding the energy efficiency of the buildings are causing an ever-increasing number of the new residential buildings to have central conditioning systems. The hot summers and the relatively shallow aquifers make the use of the underground aquifers a feasible heat sink to be used during summer cooling.

This small grant aims at a targeted audience of building entrepreneurs and specialized companies active in the area of residential cooling and heating. Its objective is to expose this audience to the best available information on the issue.