The construction of two hydro plants on the Soca river in Slovenia is going according to plan said Valentin Golob, the director of Soske elektrarne,
in a report in the Slovenia Business Week.
The Plava I plant is expected to produce its first kWh of electricity in the second half of 2001, along with the Doblar II plant.
Once the projects have been completed, the chain of Soca hydro power plants run by Soske elektrarne will increase its yearly output by 100M kWh. This will increase the total annual output of three larger power stations and several small ones in the Soca chain to 500M kWh, 5% of Slovenia’s annual electricity production.
Soske elektrarne produced nearly 362M kWh of electricity last year, 4% less than it had planned. The three large plants, Plava, Doblar and Solkan, generated almost 90% of this output. The figure makes up 11% of electricity produced by all Slovenian hydro power plants in 1999, and 4% of all electricity produced in the country. However, Soske elektrarne still made losses of around US$3.5M last year, mainly as a result of low government-controlled electricity prices.