June 18 (SeeNews) - Romanian hydro power producer Hidroelectrica said it has signed a 57 million lei ($14 million/ 12 million euro) contract with a consortium formed by DSD Noell and UTI Facility for the modernisation of Portile de Fier I hydropower station, on the Danube.

The German-Romanian tie-up will modernise electrical installations related to the hydro mechanical equipment and the hydraulic drive installation connected to the Portile de Fier I overflow dam, Hidroelectrica said in a press release on Thursday.

"The works undertaken today are of structural importance for the Hidroelectrica’s Iron Gates objective and come to solve the problem of physical and moral wear of some components of the overflow dam and do not stop there," Bogdan Badea, president of the management board of Hidroelectrica, said. "Equipment which exceeded service life will be replaced, some have been in use for over 50 years, with modern equipment, which incorporates the latest technologies and which allows automation of operation, electronic monitoring and control, computerisation."

The deal is yet another in a series of major investments at Portile de Fier, including the modernisation of the SCADA systems in the control rooms for 3.14 million lei, the 10 million lei upgrade of the monitoring and diagnosis system and additional protection works at the heat sink estimated at 58 million lei.

The Portile de Fier I Hydropower and Navigation System was built jointly by Romania and Serbia, as each country has facilities with 1,080 MW capacity.

SD Noell GmbH is a member company of Germany's DSD Steelgroup GmbH group, whiccarries out turnkey projects in the field of hydromechanical installations and control systems for mobile bridges and floating bridges.

UTI Facility Management is a company with fully Romanian capital which offers a complex range of services and technologies for facility management, integrated physical security systems, X-ray scanning systems, computerized process management, call center , operational dispatcher, web monitoring client, security and monitoring of car fleets.

Hidroelectrica is 80.06% owned by the Romanian state, while investment fund Fondul Proprietatea owns 19.94%. The company has in its portfolio 187 hydro power plants with a total installed capacity of 6,372 MW, as well as the Crucea wind park with a 108 MW installed capacity.

(1 euro=4.8722 lei)