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Putin, Sargsyan attend ceremony of launch of Hrazdan thermal power plant unit

Hrazdan-5 is a unique project that has put into practice a new method of electricity generation

GYUMRI, December 02. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian and Armenian Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Serzh Sargsyan, have attended a ceremony of commissioning of the fifth power unit of the Hrazdan thermal power plant.

In a teleconference regime the two leaders contacted Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee Aleksei Miller who was in the plant’s territory. The company head reported to them that the fifth power unit, built with Gazprom investment, was ready for launch and said that the unit with a capacity of 40 megawatts would generate 3.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

After that the plant’s Director Karen Sargsyan said that the power unit had been put into commercial operation. According to him, the load power was 280 megawatts and electricity supply to the Armenian power grid started.

Putin asked the Gazprom chief to specify the investment volume attracted in the power unit construction. Miller said that it exceeded 300 million U.S. dollars.

The Russian and Armenian presidents wished success to the power plant’s employees.

Prior to that, since January 2012, the Hrazdan TPP has been in pilot operation, being included in Armenia’s power grid schedule.

The decision on the construction of the fifth power unit had been taken back in the late 1970s, and the facility building work was launched in December 2989. Later, the Hrazdan-5 construction was twice suspended and finally, in 2006 the JSC ArmRosGazprom took up the project under an agreement between Armenia and Russia.

Hrazdan-5 is a unique project that has put into practice a new method of electricity generation: it for the first time combined steam turbine and gas turbine technologies. ArmRosGazprom intends to patent this method.