September 20 (SeeNews) - Italian energy group Petrolvilla has increased its planned investment in the construction of hydropower plants in Bulgaria to 72 million euro ($101 million) in order to buy more expensive equipment for the plants, Petrolvilla’s Bulgarian subsidiary said on Thursday.
Petrolvilla said last year it would invest a total of 44 million euro to build nine hydropower plants along the river Iskar, some 40 km north of the capital Sofia.
“The increase in investment to 72 million euro is linked to the introduction of the latest equipment in the nine plants that would raise productivity and reduce the negative impact on the environment,” Vez Svoghe, a 90/10 joint venture between Petrolvilla and the Bulgarian town of Svoge, said in a statement.
The combined installed capacity of the plants will be 25 megawatts, while the combined average annual electricity production will reach 142 million kilowatthours, the company said.
Vez Svoghe launched the construction of the plants last October. It has said it would contract Bulgarian companies for their construction and leading international companies to supply the equipment.
The nine hydropower plants are expected to become operational at the end of 2011, Vez Svoghe’s general manager, Plamen Dilkov, told reporters earlier this week.
The project financing will be secured through loans from Bulgaria's UniCredit Bulbank, part of Italy's UniCredit Group, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Petrolvilla will provide 30% of the planned investment from its own funds, the company has said.
Hydro power plants account for 23% of the installed generation capacity of Bulgaria. The country's annual hydro power potential is estimated at an average of 26 billion kilowatthours, but no more than 57% of it, or 15 billion kilowatthours, can be used commercially.
More than 20 small hydro power plants were built in Bulgaria between 2001 and 2004.
The Petrolvilla group (www.petrolvilla.it) comprises nine subsidiaries, including Italian utility Trentino Energia.
($ = 0.7119 euro)