CET Bucharest West will be connected directly to Transgaz’s gas network. Elcen put the contract out to tender

Electrocentrale București (Elcen) has put up for auction in the electronic public procurement system the contract through which the CET Vest district heating power plant will be directly connected to the national gas transmission network, Transgaz.

The purpose of the EPCC Contract for the Connection of ELCEN CETs to the Transgaz natural gas transmission network – the CET Vest objective, consists of: design (Technical Project and Execution Details), technical assistance, acquisition of all materials necessary for the investment objective. construction and assembly, reception, Elcen shows.

The estimated value of the contract is 49.5 million lei, and the deadline for submitting bids is July 28. The price offered criterion is decisive in awarding the contract, given that it has 95% of the score.

Former Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja said last month that a feasibility study had been approved to connect Elcen’s Bucharest West district heating plant directly to the national transmission grid, saying that this would save on gas transportation and the money would go towards modernizing the plant.

“The feasibility study for connecting CET Vest directly to the Transgaz main line has been approved. It is a project we have been talking about for over a year now and one of the solutions we have devised so that Bucharest residents pay less for maintenance, following the “Bolojan model” already successfully implemented in Oradea for years,” wrote atunvi Burduja on Facebook.

The former minister said that this would reduce gas costs, with the money saved being invested in modernizing the plants in Bucharest.

“This feasibility study will be just the first stage of a large-scale effort to modernize Bucharest’s heating infrastructure and will fundamentally change the way the city is supplied with thermal energy. Until now, ELCEN CHPs were connected through the distribution network, with tens of millions of euros being paid by Bucharest residents as distribution tariffs, for “connections” of several hundred meters or several kilometers between the plants and the Transgaz mains.

By connecting directly to the national natural gas infrastructure, costs will be significantly reduced, the security of thermal energy supply will increase, and the funds saved will be invested in modernizing the production process. And, at the end of the process, this will also mean lower bills for Bucharest residents,” the minister said.

“This first stage will allow us to test and validate the technical and operational model. The next step? The procurement procedure for the technical project and the execution of the works at CET Vest will be launched. After completing this stage, our plan is for all CETs in Bucharest to be directly connected to the Transgaz network,” Burduja reiterated.

Currently, the plants are connected to the distribution network of Distrigaz Sud Rețele, part of the Engie group.

An older idea

The idea is older, and was revived by Burduja last year, after having been circulated since 2016, the year RADET and ELCEN entered insolvency

″We come up with a solution presented for the first time today, which was supposed to be handled by others before, the mayors of Bucharest, Mrs. Firea and Mr. Nicușor Dan. ELCEN needs gas for the production of the heating agent. These gases are delivered on Transgaz mains and come very close to the four CETs. For this service, ELCEN pays Transgaz 4 lei/MWh, after which, to actually bring the gas to the four plants, there are a few kilometers of pipe, which are related to distribution. For these few kilometers of pipe or, in the case of CET Vest, where we are today, only 400 meters, ELCEN pays 17 lei/MWh to the distributor”, Burduja said at the time.

″To give you an idea of ​​the size of this problem, I can tell you that, in all these years, ELCEN has paid, and the people of Bucharest have paid, from their own pockets, around 50 million euros per year, on average, to the distributor. This is money that, through the investment we will make, we will save. “With this investment, we will also have a new, much safer and more reliable network for the four CETs,” Burduja said in February 2024.