No Relief for Wind Parks as Bulgarian Watchdog Stops Power Line Tender

Bulgaria's Competition Protection Agency has terminated a tender for a new type of power line that was supposed to alleviate the insufficient transit capacity in the Northeast.

The tender for the rehabilitation of 107 km of power lines along Bulgaria's northern Black Sea coast included replacing the existing power lines with new-type composite conductors with a twice greater conducting capacity.

The new transfer capacity was supposed to help transport the electricity produced by the increasing number of wind power parks.

Yet, the National Electric Company NEK is found to have selected electric cables, which are not of the new type, with the price of the tender growing from BGN 16 M to BGN 22.8 M, the Trud Daily reported.

As a result, the Competition Protection Commission has refused to allow NEK Director Krasimir Parvanov to sign the contract for the rehabilitation of the power line.

The power line in question starts near the northern Black Sea town of Shabla, and splits in two directions – towards Dobrich and Varna.

The total length of the rehabilitated power lines was planned to be 150 km, which would require a total of 450 km of the composite electric cables. If realized, the project would mark the introduction of composite conductors in Bulgaria for the first time.

Because of the insufficient capacity of the power grid in Northeast Bulgaria, the Electricity System Operator, a subsidiary of the state-owned company NEK, has imposed restrictions on the production of electricity by the large wind parks located there.

This already alarmed the Ambassadors of the USA and Japan as the measures affected the 156-MW wind part St. Nikola of the American company AES and the 35-MW park Kaliakra Wind Power of the Japanese Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

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