Georgia signed a memorandum with a daughter company of Turkish Agaoglu Group on February 19 on construction of three hydropower plants on the river of Paravani in Samtskhe-Javakheti region in south of Georgia.

The memorandum of understanding on construction of hydropower plans with total capacity of 45 MW was signed with Optimum Enerji Üretim A.Ş. in Batumi during a visit of Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, the Georgian Energy Ministry said.

The Energy Ministry also said that a separate agreement was also signed on the same day between Energo-Pro, a largest electricity distributor in Georgia, Georgian State Electrosystem and Turkish state electricity transmission corporation TEİAŞ on construction of 154 kV transmission line Batumi-Arakli between Georgia and Turkey.

In November Georgia awarded USD 150 million hydropower project to Turkish Kolin Construction, Tourism Industry and Trading Co. Inc. to build a cascade of four hydropower plants with the total capacity of 105.7 megawatts on the Tekhuri river in the Samegrelo region.

The Georgian authorities say the country’s hydro power generation has a potential to attract USD 5 billion in next 7-8 years. President Saakashvili said in his annual state of the nation address in the Parliament on February 11 that Georgia would have 17 new hydro power plants by 2015.