Power plant in Chvaletice, Czechia, partially resumes operations today after nearly five days

The Chvaletice power plant partially resumed operations today after nearly five days. It had to suspend operations on the afternoon of 11 September because of a fire in a cable tray. This morning, the operator synchronized the generating unit with the grid and restarted production on two units, Petr Dušek, speaking on behalf of the power plant, said. The cable fire caused no injuries.

The outage primarily affected the flue gas desulfurization equipment, which does not directly generate electricity but eliminates emissions. All units therefore had to be safely shut down. The fire was detected by the electronic fire alarm system and initially tackled by the power plant’s own fire brigade. Four more professional and volunteer fire units then arrived to assist.

The power plant had previously estimated the damage to its equipment at several million crowns. It is also losing significant revenue from electricity sales each day. In 2022, it posted an after-tax profit of 1.003 billion crowns, compared with 132 million crowns the previous year.

The Chvaletice power plant is the youngest lignite-fired power plant in the country and has been in operation since 1979. Its four units, with an installed capacity of 820 megawatts (MW), generate electricity; the plant also supplies heat to the neighboring village of Trnávka and industrial sites. Severní energetická (Sev.en) bought it from ČEZ in 2013 for 4.12 billion crowns. In 2022, the power plant generated a record 4.9 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity.