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Wind energy as a renewable energy source with the highest growth rate in the last two decades, is considered as a very important source of electricity for the future. The forecasts for development of wind energy are highly optimistic and state that this type of energy will be really important in the future. Following recent data and analysis from certain studies, the share of wind energy in the global world electricity generation in 2020 is estimated to reach 12%. In the same context, and in order to reduce high dependence on fossil fuels, Macedonian government took some steps to introduce and enforce utilization of renewable energy sources. First wind park with capacity of 36.8 MW, installed and operated by the state-owned electricity producing company (JSC Macedonian Power Plants - ELEM), started with operation in April 2014, on a location near Bogdanci. The techno-economic analysis regarding its performance in terms of investment costs, operation and maintenance costs, electricity production and return on investment period, considering valid feed-in tariffs for wind energy production in the country is also presented in the article.

Investments in energy sector are usually long term processes both in construction and exploitation phase, and therefore require many conditions to be satisfied, mostly from legislative and technical sector. While the legislative can change in accordance with economy activities in the country, technical data (on-site measurements) which are the main base for energy facility design, need to be reliable as much as possible. Wind energy has a significant global potential which exceeds the world?s electrical energy consumptions. This paper presents the estimation of wind energy potentials in Montenegro, based on all previous available studies in this field. The wind energy potential in Montenegro is based on a combination of 3-D numerical simulations of wind fields on the entire territory, and comprehensive on-site measurements. The preliminary studies show that there is a potential of areas with high and mean values of a capacity factor about 400 MW, and annual production of 900 GWh of electric energy. The share of wind parks in the total installed power in Montenegro is planned to be about 8%, while an adequate ratio of wind parks in an annual production from renewable sources (large hydro power plants are included here) is estimated to be 11.4%. The paper presents the current state of art in the field of building of wind parks in Montenegro. A particular attention was paid to the legislation framework and strategic documents in the energy area in Montenegro.