Serious competition among 14 participants was registered at the first of a kind tender to sell 1.756 million megawatt-hours (mWh) of electricity that would be produced in 2008 by the Varna thermal power plant (TPP), mediapool.bg said on October 30.

The businesses taking part in the tender submitted 60 offers for a total of 790 megawatt power capacity, which was at least four times more than the capacity CEZ Trade Bulgaria could offer. Varna TPP is owned by a local subsidiary of Czech company CEZ. CEZ Trade picked only five of the offers.

The buying price proposed by the tender bidders was much higher than the price at which the state-owned power supply network operator National Electric Company (NEC) had been selling the electricity produced by Varna TPP, CEZ Trade said, as quoted by mediapool.bg.

The large number of bidders and their offers was not a surprise to the owners of Varna TPP. It was a confirmation that there was a shortage of electricity in Europe, caused by the shrinking of power generation capacities and by the constantly increasing energy consumption on the continent as a whole and in the Balkans in particular, said Michal Skalka, trade director of CEZ.

The contracts with successful bidders would be signed by November 27 and the supply from Varna TPP would start on janury 1 2008, said mediapool.bg.