Powered up Slovenské élektrárne

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Slovenské elektrárne, a.s. is a company whose core business is the production and sale of electricity. In terms of available installed capacity it is the largest power generating company in Slovakia and the second largest in central and eastern Europe. It also generates and sells heat, and provides ancillary services to the power grid. Since 2006 the company has been a member of the Enel Group. Romana Moares reports on the latest developments

The Slovak electricity market is part of the CENTREL area which also includes Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Slovenské elektrárne represents around 8 per cent of CENTREL’s installed capacity and 7 per cent of its annual generation.

In the Slovak Republic generation and wholesale activities were fully liberalized in January 2005. As a result there has been no price regulation at the wholesale level. Also, import and export prices are determined by bilateral contracts and since January 2005 there are no limits on the amounts of electricity that can be exchanged out of the domestic market.

Slovenské elektrárne is the biggest electricity provider in Slovakia with 82 per cent of the country’s generation market. Slovenské elektrárne is the main supplier of electricity for the three biggest regional distribution companies in Slovakia (ZSE, SSE and VSE) and also supplies electricity to large businesses. The company is the main provider of ancillary services in Slovakia. It has an ideal production mix – nuclear, water, fossil as well as renewable resources. The company has 5739 MWe of gross capacity in 34 hydroelectric, two nuclear, two thermoelectric and two photovoltaic plants.

New millennium, new company

The joint-stock company Slovenské elektrárne was founded on 21 January 2002 as a new entity of the estate and the legal successor of the original Slovenské elektrárne a.s., of which the assets of the Slovak

power grid operator SEPS and the heating company Tepláreň Košice were spun off.

The company’s goal has always been the safe, reliable, efficient and competitive production, sale and trade of electricity and heat. It is also concerned with the safe handling of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, with permanent lowering of the negative environmental impacts of production processes. In 2011, the company generated almost 89 per cent of electricity without greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to hydro and nuclear energy.

As of 31 December 2011, Slovenské elektrárne has two shareholders. The majority shareholder is the Italian company Enel Produzione SpA, which has a 66 per cent stake in the company. The National Property Fund of the Slovak Republic is the minority shareholder with 34 per cent.

Becoming part of the Enel Group

In July 2004, Enel submitted a binding offer and on 7 October of the same year the group was selected as a ‘preferred bidder’. During the acquisition process, Enel, the National Property Fund (NPF) and Slovakia’s Ministry of the Economy agreed the terms of an investment plan aimed at increasing the output and enhancing the efficiency and environmental standards of the plant portfolio. The updated investment plan for Slovenské elektrárne covering the years 2006–2013 expects capital expenditures of almost €3.6 billion.

When it comes to nuclear generation, the company is focused on the development of new capacity, mainly through the construc-

tion of units 3 & 4 of the Mochovce NPP with a planned CAPEX of almost €2.8 billion. Through the use of up-to-date technology, in 2008 Slovenské elektrárne managed to increase the output of units 1 and 2 of the Mochovce NPP with the total installed capacity of the plant reaching 940 MW from the previous 880 MW. After a five-year modernisation programme at the Bohunice NPP, the progressive power up-grade of its two 440 MW units was started in 2008. In October 2010, the installed capacity at Bohunice NPP increased to 1010 MW.

In the area of renewable energy, Slovenské elektrárne has developed combined combustion with biomass fuels in its coalfired plants. The first biomass co-combustion was commissioned in the autumn of 2009 at one of the 110 MW black coal-fired units in the Vojany TPP.

In 2009, Slovenské elektrárne expanded its business in the distribution market by establishing SE Predaj, a 100 per cent subsidiary that operates in the Slovak small and medium enterprise market with over 1 TWh of supplies contracted for 2010. On-going modernisation

The number one priority for the company has always been operational safety. For this reason, safety at a power plant is verified and controlled at the highest possible levels throughout all of its phases (project design, authorisation, construction, operation, decommissioning and final dismantlement), using procedures that have been designed specifically for the needs of the power sector. It is also worthwhile mentioning that the development of technology has increasingly led to the adoption of safety systems for which human intervention

is limited to a minimum and safety is managed automatically. This includes systems based on fundamental physical principles like gravity or thermodynamics of the cooling fluid.

Slovenské elektrárne will have invested €2.775 billion by 2013 in the construction of Mochovce NPP units 3 and 4. Further investments were required for the modernisation and power up-grade of existing units in Bohunice NPP (€500 million), and Mochovce NPP power up-grade, The Strategic Plan also covers the full automation and modernisation of the existing hydro units, the introduction of biomass in the fleet of thermal power plants (in Vojany and Nováky) and the development of renewables – mainly photovoltaic and small hydro power plants.

All this investment has been made in line with the company’s vision: to be the safest, most reliable, efficient and competitive producer of electricity in the region. n