Coal-fired thermal power plant Stanari is taken offline on 26 September, for regular annual maintenance, which will last 30 days. Besides regular maintenance, extensive works on the boiler plant are planned, with the goal of increasing the reliability and availability of the plant’s full capacity in the coming period.
TPP Statari produced 1,560,540 MWh of electricity since the beginning of 2020, while nearby Stanari coalmine excavated 1.93 million tons of coal in the same period. According to 2020 business plan, there are three outages planned for this year. Preventive outages were performed in February and June, with 10 days offline time each, during which boiler and turbines plants, as well as auxiliary systems were inspected.
TPP Stanari is the first private investment in large conventional power production facility in former Yugoslavia. The project started in 2004, when UK-based EFT Group was selected as the best bidder on the international tender for the selection of strategic partner for coalmine Stanari. Since the demand of lignite in the region was in decline, EFT decided to build a thermal power plant near the coalmine. Initial plans envisaged the construction of 400 MW unit that was supposed to produce some 3 TWh of electricity per year, project was financially supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the equipment was to be delivered by French Alstom. However, the final agreement was not reached, EFT turned to Chinese company Dongfang and reduced the output of the plant to 300 MW, planned production to 2 TWh of electricity per year and gross efficiency from 43 % to 38.5 %. TPP Stanari was officially commissioned on 20 September 2016, the cost of the project totaled some 550 million euros, while most of the funds were provided by China Development Bank.