POWER Digest [December 2018]
Veolia Hungary Creates VPP Portfolio. Veolia Hungary in October acquired a 51% ownership share in CHP Eromu Kft., the first step in a process for Veolia to create a virtual power plant (VPP) portfolio. The company will enter the regulated market as CHP Power Plant Ltd., which includes three gas-fired generating units with combined generation capacity of about 30 MW. Veolia also plans to integrate combined cycle plants from Nyíregyháza and Debrecen into the same system, controlled from a dispatch center in Budapest. The company in a news release said linking the small plants will enable Veolia to sell the plants’ electricity in different market segments on the Hungarian Power Exchange. Veolia with this transaction also will enter the Budapest teleheating market, as heat produced by the Újpalota plant will be taken over by Budapest district heating service provider FOTÁV Zrt.
Financing in Place for LNG-Fueled Power Plant. The government-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation leads a consortium of international banks that will lend $1.31 billion for an Indonesian thermal power station fueled by liquefied natural gas. The group behind the power plant includes Japanese trading houses Marubeni and Sojitz along with shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines. It is part of the Japanese government’s push to export energy infrastructure. The project’s financing involves several banks, including Japan’s JBIC, Mizuho Bank, and MUFG Bank, along with OCBC Bank of Singapore, and French banks Societe Generale and Credit Agricole. JBIC will handle $600 million of the loans. Japanese-government-owned Nippon Export and Investment Insurance will provide coverage for some of the funds. Construction of the power plant on the west side of the island of Java will begin by year-end, with commercial operation scheduled to begin in 2021. The plant is designed with a generation capacity of 1,760 MW and will sell its power to Indonesia utility PLN under a 25-year power purchase agreement. Indonesia wants to develop 56 GW of power over the next 10 years, with gas-fired power providing more than 20% of the nation’s generation.
Construction Begins on New Brazilian Solar Park. Enel Green Power Brasil Participacoes (EGPB), a renewable energy subsidiary of the Enel Group, has started construction of a 475-MW solar facility in Brazil. The Sao Goncalo solar park is located in Piaui state in northeast Brazil. It is expected to begin commercial operation in 2020. Enel Group in late October said it was investing about $390 million in the project, which it calls the largest solar facility under construction in South America. EGPB was awarded 20-year power supply contracts for a 388-MW DC portion of this project in a public tender by energy regulator Aneel in late 2017. These contracts include a pool of power distribution companies operating in the country’s regulated market. Enel said the remaining 87 MW will be sold on the open market. Enel has more than 2.9 GW of installed renewable power generation capacity in Brazil, including 820 MW of solar and 842 MW of wind.
Honduran Solar Plant Starts Commercial Operation.The Los Prados solar plant in Honduras, operated by Scatec Solarof Norway, has begun commercial operation. The 35-MW facility is co-owned by Scatec Solar (70%) and KLP Norfund Invest(30%). Raymond Carlsen, Scatec Solar’s CEO, in a statement said, “We are very pleased to have completed the Los Prados solar plant in close cooperation with our partners and the Honduran authorities. With this milestone our asset portfolio in Honduras reaches 95 MW, confirming our track record in the Latin American solar market.” The Los Prados project has a 20-year power purchase agreement with state-owned utility Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica. Mark Davis, Norfund Clean Energy’sexecutive vice president, said, “Investing in clean energy is a priority for Norfund and we are pleased to expand our partnership with Scatec Solar with this second solar power plant in Honduras.” Scatec Solar had 322 MW of solar power generation in five nations: Jordan, Honduras, Rwanda, South Africa, and the Czech Republic.
Floating Solar Project Deployed at South Korea Coal Plant. South Korean state-utility Korea East-West Power Co. (EWP)has completed a 3.5-MW floating solar project at a coal-fired power plant. EWP said solar panel modules were deployed on water near a coal ash basin at the Dangjin power station, about 120 kilometers south of Seoul. EWP said it has 434 MW of renewable energy capacity and has targeted 25% of renewables in its energy mix by 2030. “The latest solar farm uses unused space and can prevent the environmental degradation that comes from building a power plant,” EWP said. The utility said the solar array will eliminate 1,700 tons of greenhouse gas emissions when compared to coal-fired generation. EWP is a subsidiary of Korea Power Electric Co.■
—Darrell Proctor is a POWER associate editor.