Five investors interested on the construction of HPP Tarnita. See how the EUR 1 bn project will look…

Tarnita Hydro Company is trying for years to attract investors to build the hydropower plant (HPP) of over EUR 1 billion in Cluj county. Five companies have filed preliminary non-binding bids in a tender by the Friday deadline, a statement reads, without disclosing the names of the bidders.

“According to the principle of transparency, the list of pre-qualified investors will be published after reviewing the submitted documentation and we will enter into the next phase of prequalification stage, the negotiation “, Ovidiu Demetrescu, general manager of the project company said. He added that Hydro Tarnita received also letters of intent from international financial institutions to finance the project.

The 1.0 GW hydropower project envisages the construction of Tarnita-Lapustesti pumped-storage HPP which will comprise four reversible pump-turbines of 250 MW each. Investing in this HPP will take between five and seven years and will create 4,000 jobs in the execution phase.

Initially, the deadline for filing pre-qualification documents has already been pushed back once, to November 27 from October 31, then Romanian authorities has extended until January 30 the bidding deadline, at the request of interested investors.

During the first stage of the procedure, investors must prove they meet the pre-qualification criteria. The second stage consists of negotiations based on preliminary non-binding bids, and in the third stage investors must file sealed bids.