SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), November 26 (SeeNews) – Bosnian power utility Elektroprivreda BiH said it signed on Thursday a 12.3 million euro ($18.5 million) deal with Czech technological equipment manufacturer Skoda Power for thermal power plant upgrade.
The contract includes the revamp of turbine and generation facilities at Unit 6 of the utility’s Kakanj thermal power plant and aims to raise the lifespan of the unit by 15 years, or by 100,000 working hours, Elektroprivreda BiH said in a statement.
The upgrade will also increase the capacity of the turbine and of the generator by seven to ten percent, it added.
The deal is part of a bigger rehabilitation project for Unit 6, worth a preliminary 94.5 million marka ($73 million/48 million euro). The overall project is scheduled to be completed in October 2011.
On Monday, Elektroprivreda BiH signed a 25.14 million euro contract with Czech-registered firm Austria Energy for the renovation of a boiler facility and control system at Unit 6.
Kakanj plant has seven units with total installed capacity of 450 megawatts and produces an average of 2,300 gigawatt hours a year. It is the smaller one of Elektroprivreda BiH’s two thermal power plants.
The bigger one is Tuzla, whose six blocks produce an average of 3,100 gigawatt hours yearly. It has a total capacity of 715 megawatts.
State-owned Elektroprivreda BiH operates in the Muslim-Croat Federation, one of the two parts of postwar Bosnia. The other is the Serb Republic.
A second power utility, Elektroprivreda HZ Herceg Bosne, operates in the Federation, while Elektroprivreda RS is active in the Serb Republic.
(1 euro=1.95583 marka)