Company briefs - 2012-02-02

Administrative District Court re-opened the door for Latvian passenger train operator Pasazieru vilciens and its pending contract with the Spanish company Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A. (CAF) on new trains, reports LETA. On Jan. 25, the court rejected Swiss company Stadler Bussnang AG’s (Stadler) petition that demanded suspension of the Procurement Monitoring Bureau’s decision to grant permission for the 429.2 million lats (612 million euros) procurement - the biggest such deal in Latvian history. The ruling can be appealed in the next 10-day period. Stadler had specifically requested blocking permission for the deal until the court had reviewed the justification for the permission in principle. No date has been set yet for review. CAF was selected by Pasazieru vilciens to supply 34 new electric, and seven new diesel, trains.

Renewable energy formed 12.9 percent of Estonian energy consumption, together with the power stations’ own needs in 2011, which is by 3.2 percent more than at the same time the previous year. The biggest share of the renewable energy was electricity produced of waste and bio-mass (66 percent); wind energy followed with 31 percent and hydro-energy with 3 percent, grid operator Elering announced. The volume of renewable energy produced in Estonia was 1,160 GWh by the end of the year and the production increased by 35 percent in a year. 1,066 GWh of the renewable energy qualified for state subsidies, meaning that the volume of renewable energy that was supported grew by 40 percent and the amount of subsidies grew by the same amount to 57.2 million euros.