March 9 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Varna thermal power plant (TPP) plans to resume electricity production by July 31, after it halted operations in 2015 due to non-compliance with environmental limits set in its permit, the plant operator said.
The company's 2018 investment strategy envisages switching electricity generation to natural gas from coal, Varna TPP said in a procurement notice earlier this week.
Varna TPP said it has opened a 1.6 million levs ($1.0 million/818,100 euro) tender for construction works related to its Unit 5 and a 734,000 levs tender for the maintenance of the turbine of Unit 5.
In September last year, three of Varna TPP's six units were decommissioned, decreasing the plant's capacity to 630 MW from 1,260 MW.
Earlier this year, Bulgarian logistics company SIGDA completed the acquisition of Varna TPP from Czech power utility CEZ Group for an undisclosed price.
(1 euro=1.95583 levs)