Spain’s Iberdrola has started construction of what it has hailed as an innovative combined cycle power plant in Lithuania.
The utility’s engineering arm, Iberdrola Ingeniería, is building the 440 MW plant in Elektranai, 40 km from Vilnius on a turnkey basis for state-owned utility Lietuvos Elektrine AB. The plant will be of strategic importance to the country, which is preparing to close the final unit at the Ignalina nuclear power plant.
Iberdrola Ingeniería last year commissioned a similar plant in Latvia, and says that this latest contract will make it a key operator in the Baltic region’s power plant modernisation sector. The EUR330 million project is the largest ever to be funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and awarded to a Spanish company.
Lithuania is in the process of upgrading its generation before the closure of Ignalina’s 1200 MW unit 2 RBMK reactor.
The Spanish group won the contract for the new combined cycle plant amid competition from Siemens, Alstom and SNC Lavalin. The plant is scheduled to be operational by 2012.
Iberdrola Ingeniería recently announced that it had completed construction of its first combined cycle power plant in the Middle East, a 225 MW plant in the emirate of Fujairah, UAE. It is also building a combined cycle facility in Mesaieed, Qatar.
The Fujairah plant is owned by Emirates Sembcorp Water & Power Company and will operate on natural gas to produce both electricity and desalinated water.
The Mesaieed plant in Qatar will have an installed capacity of 2000 MW, making it the largest of its kind in the Middle East.
