OREANDA-NEWS. The third unit at Fortum's Nyagan Power Plant has passed comprehensive and certification tests that precede commissioning. Fortum plans to start the commercial operation of the unit by the end of 2014. Capacity payments under the Russian government's Capacity Supply Agreement (CSA) for 418 megawatts (MW) are scheduled start as of 1 January 2015.

During the testing period, the unit operated for 72 hours at maximum load. After the comprehensive tests, the power plant began certification tests to confirm the unit's technical parameters. Certification was passed successfully. The unit was thereby finalised 15 months ahead of the CSA-projected schedule. Nyagan 1 has been in commercial operation since 1 April 2013 and Nyagan 2 since 1 December 2013. Construction of the power plant began in 2008.  

The Nyagan Power Plant that has now been completed in the oil and gas rich Russian Khanty-Mansiysk Automonous Region in Western Siberia was Fortum's largest green-field investment project in the 2000's. With a power generation capacity of over 1,260 MW, it is also Russia's most modern thermal power plant and the country's biggest combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) facility in decades. The power plant features the most advanced available thermal generation technologies and is unrivaled in efficiency for its class in Russia.

With the Nyagan project successfully completed, Fortum once again demonstrates its commitment to fulfill its extensive 2,500-MW investment program that will have nearly doubled the company's power generation capacity in Russia once finalised in 2015. Fortum now focuses on the completion of the programme's last two remaining new units that are being built at the Chelyabinsk GRES power plant. The two units will add close to 500 MW's of new power generation capacity and 350 MW's of heat production capacity to support the demand from the local metals and heavy machinery industries in the Urals region.