Serbia: TPP Kostolac, with revitalizations and investments to the full power of TPP units

Published on 23. January 2014., News Serbia Energy

Production of electricity in Kostolac power plants is carried out according to the plans in December, but the annual production plan will be a few percent lower than expected, amounting to about 95 percent, due to objective circumstances, said the director of the production of electricity, Zoran Stanojevic:

-This year’s production plan in our thermal capacities will not be fully realized because we had a long period of suppression due to extremely favorable hydrological situation. Suppression of thermal capacities was during the summer, especially now in September and October, and therefore the level of achievement of planned production in Kostolac will not be 100 percent. We must underline the fact that this year’s production of “Kostolac A” and “Kostolac B” will be a record. It is important that we were ready at the moment when power was to be given to the power system of our country, and we regularly have been able to do it.

Record production of electricity in Kostolac is credited to all employees, repairs that are well-done, reflecting on high reliability of thermal power plants: – This good performance is possible due to the proper planning, which resulted in well-invested funds as well done repairs and large interventions, such as the reconstruction. I’m talking about the interventions that have been made during the past period, and the revitalization of the block B2 made this power plant work with more power, about 351 352 megawatts. The fact that the block B2 now has this strength, suggests that the goals of this capital intervention are made, which will also start on block B1 in TPP “Kostolac B” in March next year. After the revitalization of the block B1, we expect that its forces would also reach 350 megawatts as the block B2. Optimization of the block will follow, said director Stanojevic.

– At present the annual business plan of Electric Power Industry of Serbia has not yet been approved by the Government, which causes problems with the implementation of public procurement because we can not make them take up, and first March 2014 block B1 stops working due to revitalization. This will create a very complex approach to the implementation of this procedure. It would be good if the procurements were already running, but unfortunately that was not possible, and we will need to know how to deal with any potential problems in time to come.

International credit agreement with Chinese partners was signed three years ago and includes a schedule of implementation of agreed projects, reminds Zoran Stanojevic:

– In financial terms, this means that the great “Exim Bank” which follows the international package has a specific plan to withdraw funds from consortium partners, PC “TE-KO Kostolac” and corporations “CMEC” from Beijing. These are pre-agreed items where there is no possibility of deviation, which is why every disharmony must diminish because it can lead to very major complications in the implementation of this credit arrangement.

Source; Serbia Energy