PPC in JV for plant in Elefsina
The Public Power Corporation (PPC), Greece’s biggest electricity producer, and Halyvourgiki, a privately held steelmaker, plan to jointly build a power plant southwest of Athens. Their management boards will convene to approve construction of an 880-megawatt, natural gas-fired generator, PPC said yesterday in a regulatory filing. Halyvourgiki would own 51 percent of the joint venture, and state-controlled PPC would own the rest. The plant site is to be at Elefsina, to supply Athens and southern Greece, PPC said in a separate e-mailed statement. «PPC is forming minority partnerships to circumvent regulatory hurdles for building new generation capacity,» Paris Mantzavras, an Athens-based analyst at HSBC Pantelakis Securities, said yesterday in a telephone interview. The company is separately considering a joint venture with Germany’s RWE AG to build an anthracite-powered 1,600-megawatt power plant in northern Greece. PPC produces more than 90 percent of the electricity consumed in Greece. The government currently bars the company from increasing its capacity as part of plans to encourage new electricity producers to enter the energy market. (Bloomberg)
