OREANDA-NEWS  On 18 September was announced, that Eduard Rossell, governor of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Region in the Urals, Fulvio Conti, Enel CEO and General Manager and Anatoliy Kopsov, OGK-5 General director laid the cornerstone of the new 410 MW combined-cycle unit at the OGK-5 power station of Sredneuralskaya near Ekaterinburg. The new plant is scheduled to enter service in 2010. The total investment will come to about 350 million euros. The project is part of the plan to modernize and upgrade the plants of OGK-5, the generation company in which Enel has a majority stake.

Fulvio Conti emphasised that "with today’s inauguration we are confirming our commitment in Russia, a country that has started a major process of development of the energy sector, in which we want to participate by bringing our experience. We have built an integrated presence along the entire value chain, from raw materials to the generation and sale of electricity, creating a strategically important position for Enel in a market, which is undergoing liberalisation, that is one of the largest in the world and promises an excellent return on our investment".

OGK-5’s investment plans for the 2008-2012 period call for the installation of two combined-cycle units with a total capacity of 820 MW, both due to enter service by the end of 2010, and a series of investments to increase the efficiency and useful life of the plants while reducing their environmental impact, for a total of about 1.5 billion euros.