French electricity giant EDF has signed a joint development agreement with the Dutch company Delta, aimed at building and operating a 870MW natural gas fired power plant in the southwestern Netherlands.
EDF and Delta plan to equally co-finance the building of this combined-cycle gas plant located in the province of Zeeland. The two companies will also jointly operate the facility. The two partners will each benefit from half of the electricity generated by the power plant, which should be operational in 2009.
Pierre Gadonneix, chairman and CEO of EDF, stated: This partnership with Delta should allow EDF to run a new development project in Europe, together with a well implanted player on the Dutch energy market and within an area where the Group wishes to establish a long-term presence.
Delta, the fourth largest utility company in Netherlands, is the first to be able to start construction of a large, new power plant since the energy market deregulation of 1998.