TPP “ConturGlobal Maritsa East 3” – one of the two so-called American headquarters, is temporarily suspended from today, February 21. The reason is that on this date its long-term contract with the National Electric Company for the purchase of the produced electricity at fixed prices expires. The plant will now have to sell on the open market, but at the moment its prices are not profitable.
“The suspension is temporary, at this stage there will be no redundancies. The majority of them will deal with maintenance, repair of the plant and its preparation for a time when electricity prices will be better,” explained executive director Vasil Shtonov to the Staro Zagorje electronic media Dividend.EU.
TPP “Maritsa Iztok 3” was bought and modernized in 2009 by the London Stock Exchange listed company “ContourGlobal”, which concluded a 15-year contract with NEK for the purchase of electricity produced by it. NEK itself holds 27% of the plant. In 2022, ContourGlobal sold its stake to the KKR fund, which is a shareholder in United Group, the owner of Vivacom.
The operation of the plant is already carried out on a commercial basis – when there are good prices, it will work, and when there are no good prices, it will not work, explained Vasil Shtonov. The thermal power plant will operate only on days when the exchange price of electricity exceeds the cost of its production. The cost price of the electricity produced by the “Maritsa East 3” TPP is 125 euros (245 BGN) per MWh – far above the prices at which electricity has been traded on the Bulgarian Energy Exchange since the summer.
In the last days before the expiration of the contract with NEK, only one of the units was in operation, but as of today, it will also stop.
“The main problem is that the price of gas is very low, so coal-fired power is not attractive at the moment,” the plant’s executive director added.
About 400 people are employed at the private TPP. Together with the ministries of energy and labor, programs are being prepared for their retraining in other activities.
The plant has announced several ambitious projects that are seeking funding from the Recovery and Sustainability Plan for over BGN 1.3 billion. Among them are photovoltaic plants with storage batteries, a waste-to-energy plant, decarbonization of the plant through a carbon capture plant dioxide and recovery, as well as an innovative facility with a capacity of 100 MW for long-term energy storage.
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