After just a decade, the Vértes power plant in Oroszlány will soon be generating electricity again. The Veolia Group acquired the Vértes power plant from the state-owned MVM Holding in the fall of 2022.
In the first step, the new owner is having the boilers modernized by the Finnish company Valmet with an investment of around HUF 10 billion (EUR 25.4 million). The boilers previously fired by coal or chemical fuels will be converted to biomass. The raw materials will be supplied by forestry and wood processing companies or agricultural enterprises within a 100 km radius of the town.
The Vértes power plant is already the fifth “green” power plant of the Veolia Group in Hungary. 350 employees are currently being hired. In addition, according to the investor, the project will create 600-700 jobs among suppliers. The power plant is expected to be connected to the grid in just one year, and will then generate 600 GWh of electricity or supply around 5,000 households in Oroszlány and Bokod with district heating.
At the end of 2015, the former coal-fired power plant was taken off the grid due to increasingly stringent environmental regulations. The coal came from the nearby Márkushegy mine, the last intact mine in Hungary.