TALLINN - The final handover of the fully renovated generating units at Narva Power Plants will likely take place a few months from now, executives said last week.
Unit 8 at the Estonia power station, which was the first of two overhauled units to be completed, is almost ready to be handed over. The unit is formally part of the generating assets of Narva Power Plants' energy system since Jan. 1, and both the power company and the builder are interested in its rapid delivery, the development director of Narva Power Plants, Mati Uus, told the Baltic News Service.
Commercial matters still need to be settled with the builder, Foster Wheeler, before the unit can be handed over, Uus said. He added that the renovation effort completely overhauled a part of the system and left another part unchanged.
The construction agreement, however, doesn't describe in detail all matters related to linking the two systems with one another.
Uus admitted that Narva Power Plants, a generating subsidiary of the state-owned electricity utility Eesti Energia, was adhering to the provisions of the construction agreement rigidly and that this was one of the reasons why the blocks' handover had been delayed.
The two new generating units cost some 3.8 billion kroons to build. Unit 8 has already produced 1.2 terawatt-hours of electricity and for certain periods has accounted for one-fifth of the electric energy generated at the two power plants.
The investment plan of Eesti Energia for 15 years calls for similar radical overhauls at several more generating units in the future so that the oil-shale-fueled power stations would meet all the EU environmental norms.
