Hidroelectrica puts up for sale other 22 small hydropower plants

Romania’s main electricity producer and supplier plans to sell other 22 small hydropower plants from its portfolio through an open outcry auction which will be conducted within May 14 and 16, 2014. The SHPs are divided in 14 asset packages and the starting price for selling all of them is approximately 53.85 million lei (nearly 12 million euro), according to the companyțs website.

Hidroelectrica’s strategy concerning the small hydro energy sector follows the sale of 88 of the SHPs it owns within 2013 and 2014, stations which record each year higher operating and maintenance costs than revenue. The company has already run two auctions for 28 SHPs, the first was in June 2013 and the second, in January 2014.

During the first auction all the 14 power stations were sold, whereas the latter ended with only three transactions completed, Hidroelectrica obtaining in total some 58 million lei (about 13 million euro).

For participating at these auctions the bidders must submit the corresponding guarantees which account for 10 percent of the starting price for each asset from March 25 until May 6 2014.

The state-owned enterprise is insolvent again following the decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal that admitted last month the appeals of some energy traders against the termination of the bilateral contracts through which they had access to underpriced electricity. During the first stage of insolvency, the judiciary administrator terminated those contracts that generated major loss for Hidroelectrica, the company still struggling to cover the remaining outstanding debt.