The Elektrėnai Power Plant or Elektrėnai Complex () is a gas- and fuel-oil-fired 1,055
MW electricity
generating station near
Elektrėnai
Elektrėnai () is a city of about 11,000 inhabitants in Vilnius County, Lithuania; since 2000 it has been the capital of the Elektrėnai Municipality. It is situated between the two largest cities in Lithuania – Vilnius and Kaunas.
History
His ...
, Lithuania, about west of the capital,
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
. It is operated by Ignitis gamyba AB, a subsidiary of
Ignitis.
[
]
History
The plant was built in stages between 1960 and 1972. The
Strėva River was dammed to supply it with cooling water, creating the
Elektrėnai Reservoir. In 2008, the plant comprised eight units fired with
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
. In the past, it used heavy
fuel oil
Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil (bunker fuel), marine f ...
and, for a brief period in 1990s, a
bitumen
Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...
-based fuel known as
Orimulsion imported from Venezuela. It was designed as a
base load
The base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week. This demand can be met by unvarying power plants or dispatchable generation, depending on which approach has the best m ...
plant, and generated about 10
TWh per year until 1992. Its operations were then reduced to about 5% of its capacity, since it acted only as a reserve in the Lithuanian power system.
After the shutdown of the
Ignalina nuclear power plant in 2009, the plant became the primary source of Lithuania's electrical power. Since the plant did not meet
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
environmental guidelines, improvement projects have been proposed. A
flue-gas desulfurization project was completed in September 2008. In December 2007,
Ministry of Economy announced that a new 400 MW
combined cycle unit would be built at the site as well. The cost of the new unit was estimated at 252 million
euros
The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...
; 57% of the funding was planned to be supplied by the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
, 33% by the plant, and the remaining 10% by the National Ignalina Decommissioning Fund. In 2012, a 9th unit was opened, which cost 377 million euros.
It was built by a Spanish company ''Iberdrola Ingenieria y Construccion''.
The plant supplies
district heating
District heating (also known as heat networks) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heater, space heating and w ...
to the town of Elektrėnai, established in 1962, originally to support its workers.
Units
See also
*
List of power stations in Lithuania
References
External links
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development - Executive Summary of Environmental Impact Assessment - Environmental and Related Technical Upgrading of Lithuanian Power Plant
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elektrenai Power Plant
Natural gas-fired power stations in Lithuania
Oil-fired power stations in Lithuania
Buildings and structures in Elektrėnai