April 8 (SeeNews) - Croatian state-owned power utility Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP) plans new photovoltaic plants with a combined capacity of 350 MW by 2030, as in the next five years alone it will invest 750 million kuna ($113.7 million/100 million euro) in solar capacity, it said on Monday.
"In the forthcoming five-year period the average of HEP’s investments into solar power plants will amount to 150 million kuna per year," HEP CEO Frane Barbaric said, as quoted in a company statement. This investment on average enables the construction of additional 20 MW of solar capacities annually, he added.
As part of its investment plan, HEP will launch the construction of four solar power plants - Kastelir, Cres, Vis and Vrlika Jug - with a total capacity of 11.6 MW and a combined value of 80 million kuna by the end of 2019.
The construction of solar power plant Vis will start this month. This project was taken over by HEP in December from local company Koncar OIE.
A HEP unit - HEP Proizvodnja - will build the Vrlika Jug solar power plant in the second half of 2019.
HEP has also signed a purchase agreement for the existing solar power plant Sabadin, soon to be renamed to Kastelir, in the northern Adriatic,
The Vrlika Jug, Cres and Vis power plants will generate electricity at an incentive price, in the absence of a purchase agreement with the Croatian Energy Market Operator.
In March, S&P Global Ratings upgraded its long-term issuer credit rating on Croatia's state-owned power utility Hrvatska Elektroprivreda (HEP) to 'BB+' from 'BB'.
(1 euro = 7.43392 kuna)
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