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Novaky Coal Power Plant Shuts Down After 70 Years of Operation
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The generation of electricity and heat powered by domestic brown coal in the Novaky Power Plant (ENO) has come to a definitive end after 70 years, with the last turbine shut down on Wednesday, ENO director Miroslav Piacek announced on the same day.
The last train loaded with coal arrived at the power plant on Sunday, December 17. "We've shut down the last pulverised coal-fired boiler FK1. Metaphorically speaking, the circle has closed because ENO was a power plant that started to supply electricity for the whole of Slovakia 70 years ago. Subsequently, it became the biggest power plant in Slovakia where a great number of power engineers gained their practical expertise over the years and later ended up working either in hydroelectric or nuclear power plants," said Piacek.
The power block will cool off gradually before its definitive decommissioning, at which point the flue-gas stacks will stop smoking and all environmental measures begin.
Chair of the board of directors and SE general director Branislav Strycek called the shutting down of the boiler a sad moment, although he hopes it will become just another watershed in the history of the region, where SE plans to stay and witness its further development. "The bulk of the staff [84 employees] will stay here, either on-site or to do centralised maintenance. It's not that we shut it down here completely," he claimed, adding that another 65 people have either retired or found different jobs and 46 plan to retrain.
With its operation launched in 1953, ENO was the largest energy producer in Slovakia until the mid-1980s, when it was gradually overtaken by nuclear power plants. "Despite large investments in the ecologisation of its operation, the electricity production was gradually stifled," stated SE. In 2023, ENO ran two 110 MW blocks and two smaller turbines with installed power output of 28 and 18 MW, even though in the late 1970s/early 1980s the power plant had a rated power output of up to 618.8 MW.
(TASR)
