Shoumen Electrification Region

Shoumen Electrification Region including Rousse Region

Rousse was the only town in the Shoumen electrification region electrified before World War 1 (1917). Another exception was Silistra which was electrified in 1936 by means of a DC diesel power plant, when Dobrudja was still under Romanian rule.

The growing electricity consumption in Rousse required that the Rousse diesel power plant should be extended by a new diesel unit-a 600 hp engine from the Graz factory, and a 470 kW Siemens generator (1926). So, the plant reached 940 kW total installed capacity, and the town’s demand for electricity was completely met.

In 1936 a business enterprise-“Rousse Electricity Supply”, with its own budget was established. The Ministry of Public Utilities assigned to it the electrification of other towns in that region. For the purpose, in 1941 a thermal power plant with one 2000 hp turbine and a 1400 kW generator was built on the site of the Rousse DPP. Some Rousse DPP small industrial and local power plants with capacity not commissioned in 1917 exceeding a few hundreds of kilowatts were also used.

Quite an early electrification was carried out in Razgrad in 1930 by the construction of a 130 kW diesel power plant and later, in 1933 a 350 kW extension to it. Koubrat was also electrified in 1930, the village of Shtraklevo in 1933, etc.

Shoumen, as the main town in the region, was electrified by means of a 270 hp diesel power plant with a 180 kW, 6000 V generator, and five 6/0.4 kV distribution trans-formers (1927). So, 34 years after the first electric bulb was lit up in Shoumen (at the brewery in 1893), the beginning of electrification in the town was laid. Later on, the Shoumen DPP was extended by a second 240 kW unit (in 1929) and a third unit with a Wechsel engine, operating as both diesel and gasogen engine (1939). The war time when there was a shortage of diesel fuel necessitated the use of such an engine that could operate using charcoal gas. For the purpose, during the next few years (1942) the enterprise bought 500 dca of forests in the mountains around Preslav for the production of about 1 800 000 kgf charcoal.