Gaznat Ltd., which has its registered office in Vevey in the Swiss canton of Vaud, has been awarded a contract to supply the Monthey heat/power cogeneration plant, situated in the Municipality of Monthey in the Swiss canton of Valais, with natural gas for the next three years. The contract, which will come into effect from 1 January 2011, was signed by both parties on 6 September 2010 in Lausanne. Gaznat will in future supply Alpiq with 1.2 terawatt hours of natural gas per year.
Process steam and electricity Alpiq celebrated the inauguration of the heat/power cogeneration plant in Monthey on 23 October 2009. The industrial power station has an electrical capacity of 55 megawatts, a thermal capacity of 43 megawatts and at 80 percent a very high efficiency factor. The plant generates an annual output of 466 000 tonnes of process steam and 456 gigawatt hours of electricity.
Together with two chemical companies, Alpiq has since 2004 operated two very similarly designed heat/power cogeneration plants in Novara and Vercelli in North Italy.