The first-ranked bidder Czech Skoda Praha has offered the construction of the second unit of 254 megawatts at a cost of 338.5 MEUR, with an annual electricity generation of 1,600 GWh.
According to tender conditions, Skoda Praha is obliged to provide a loan to the investor in the amount of 85 percent of investment. According to the Czechs plan, the new unit will have the energy efficiency as much as 39.5 percent, which is about 12 percent higher than the efficiency of the old unit. Thus, the unit two will have more power, produce more energy than the existing unit, and then it will spend significantly less coal – only 800,000 tons per year! With the effect of the cooling tower which will reduce air pollution in Pljevlja.
Czechs are planning to copy TPP Tusimice in Pljevlja: That Czech story on ecological power plant is not without foundation, also were convinced the journalists who visited TPP Tusimice in December 2013th, which will, according to announcements, be a model plant, which the Czechs planned to build in Pljevlja. The author of these lines saw with their own eyes that different agricultural cultures grow far from power plant of Tusimice, which is definitely a good sign for ecology. Furthermore, closed to TPP Tusimice has been installed “environmental box” that alerts the Czech Agency for Environmental Protection, if the level of air pollution exceeds the permitted limit!
What is worrying is that the Czechs did not promise that they would make the heating system of Pljevlja city, which is the prerequisite for the improvement of ecological situation in the city!
Consequently, the Government must unite the thermal power plant and coal mine as soon as possible and create all preconditions for the construction of the second unit with or without A2A. In parallel with the construction of the second unit, it is necessary to work on the heating system for Pljevlja and thereby on shutdown of the ecological contentious private furnaces.
With the construction of second unit of TPP Pljevlja, Montenegro would finally had a balanced power system that would further guarantee the security of supply for all consumers. In addition to the state and the citizens’ benefit, the great benefit would have the city of Pljevlja, because hundreds of workers would be later, during construction, employed over the repro-chain from Coal mines.
If there would not work on the construction of thermal source in Pljevlja region, with the announced shutdown of the first unit, about 150 million tons of coal would remain unused in basins of Pljevlja and Maoce. In this case, Montenegro would double the current deficit, and we all know that without energy independence has no real independence. Therefore, there is a reasonable question why the government and EPCG are so much reluctant to build another unit of TPP?