Director of state-owned power utility ESM Vasko Kovacevski said that, according to the company’s production plan, all three units of coal-fired thermal power plant Bitola will be operational as of November this year.
Kovacevski also said that the company will no longer practice downtime of 30 to 90 days for units’ maintenance, but will decrease the unit’s output during the maintenance, which will be performed in periods with lower consumption.
He said that unit 3 of TPP Bitola is still offline, following a transformer fire in December 2021. Currently, that transformer is being serviced in Serbia, but, for the first time since the plant’s commissioning, a tender has been launched for the procurement of a new transformer. It is expected that the transformer will arrive in late September or early October.
Following the commissioning of the transformer, unit 3 of TPP Bitola will be able to produce electricity during the entire heating season, namely from early November until the end of April.
Kovacevski sad that TPP Oslomej is currently undergoing maintenance, but the plant will be ready to start operating in early October with the start of the heating season.