Bulgarian regulator extends TPP Bobov Dol electricity generation licence until end-2019

The licence is extended in the conditions of an issued integrated licence, the State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (SEWRC) said in a notice published on its website.

The terms of the extended licence are identical to the ones for the licence that the TPP received in February 2001, it added.

In October, Bulgaria's Execution Environment Agency said TPP Bobov Dol had applied for an integrated permit for operating a combustion installation for electricity and a hydrogen installation as it plans to operate a combustion installation with a nominal thermal power of over 50 megawatts.

In a business plan for the 2015-2018 period which the company submitted as part of the licensing process, it projects that the amount of electricity it will produce will gradually increase from 1.6 million megawatt-hours (MWh) in 2014 to 2.0 million MWh in 2018. The company's sales revenues are expected to increase from 117.9 million levs($74 million/60.3 million euro) in 2014 to more than 160 million levs in 2018.

Bobov Dol, established in 2000, is a coal-fired power plant in the Kyustendil region, in southwestern Bulgaria, with an installed capacity of 630 megawatts. In 2009, Bulgaria sold the TPP to local consortium Energy MK.