The combined gas-fired power plant in Brazi, operated by Petrom, recorded record electricity production last year, according to the 2022 report the company recently presented.
The Brazi power plant, with a total installed capacity of 860 MW, produced 5.01 TWh of electricity in 2022, which is 5 percent more than the result in 2021 (4.8 TWh) and the highest amount since its start-up 10 year.
The Brazi power plant’s output in 2022 had a 9 percent share of Romania’s total electricity production, Petrom said in the report.
The Brazi power plant uses gas, in whole or in part, produced by Petrom in Romania for the production of electricity.
For gas produced in the country, the government in Bucharest last year limited the price for power plants to 100 leva (about 20 euros) per MWh. The selling price of the produced electricity is limited by the state to 450 BGN (91 EUR) per MWh, and everything above this price goes to the Energy Transition Fund, as a “solidarity tax”.
In addition, this year and next, the company is obliged to sell uncontracted quantity of electricity on the centralized OPCOM market, at a price of 91 euros per MWh.
Lower production in 2023.
The Brazi power plant will produce less electricity this year, Petrom estimates, due to the overhaul scheduled for this spring and will last two and a half months, from March to May.
OMV Petrom invested 530 million euros in the Brazi power plant, which is the largest private greenfield investment in Romania. Construction began in 2009 and commercial operations began in August 2012. Although the plant is ten years old, it is the last high-power electricity generation unit to be commissioned in Romania.
The Brazi power plant has the capacity to produce up to 11 percent of the total Romanian electricity, i.e. to cover the total consumption in Bucharest.
