The Arad thermoelectric plant to borrow 8 million Euros for retooling

The Arad Thermoelectric plant (CET) will take out an 8 million Euros loan in order to begin the investments into retooling the plant, which will lead to lower prices for the thermal energy supplied to the population.

In order to diminish the losses and to generate electricity more profitably the plant needs an investment of 48.9 million Euros.

Most of that money will come from the proceeds of the sale of green certificates by the Ministry of the Economy and Trade, but the mayoralty needs to prove that the project has been begun to receive that money.

"These investments were committed to by the Ministry of the Economy and Trade, which included them in the National Investment Plan. The Ministry of the Economy and Trade will finance 20-25% of the project, and the amount will not be lower than 10 million Euros. But in order to receive that money, we need to prove that the project has been initiated. That is why it is necessary to take out a loan to begin the modernization works", said Corneliu Neamţiu, the chairman of the Board of Directors of CET Arad said. He also added that following the funding received from the ministry, the money taken out from the loan will be recouped.

The investment involves the completion of the boiler no. 2, which costs about 8,000,000 Euros, the construction of a gas-based turbine, which costs approximately 41,000,000 Euros, the building a recovery boiler and of a heat accumulator and the closing of the ash storage unit, which will cost approximately 1,600,000 Euros. These investments will lead to the increase of the energy efficiency from 15 to 72% and to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. These investments will also cause the cost of thermal energy supplied to the population to fall to 16 Euros/gigacalorie, compared to its current level of 32 Euros.

The process for the modernization of CET Arad may also involve a private investor, with which a public-private partnership will be concluded and which would partially finance the works.

The local authorities also want to rehabilitate the system for the transportation and distribution of electricity through the Swiss-Romanian cooperation program. This investment would require 8.5 million Euros.

The investments will be completed in two years, a moment when it will be possible to talk about a 50% decrease in the price of electricity delivered to the population, which currently costs 307 lei/gigacalorie.

Foto: The retooling of the CET Arad to use lignite will lead to lower prices for thermal energy.