RIGA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Latvian economics ministry on Tuesday took the national power grid operator Sadales Tikls to task over a major green energy fraud allegedly involving several dozen combined heat and power plants across the Baltic country.
Latvian economics minister Arvils Aseradens told reporters that inspections at 30 combined heat and power stations had revealed that the power plants had failed to meet requirements for connecting to the power distribution grid. The ministry puts the blame for the situation on the power grid's operator.
"The inspections have revealed that the combined heat and power plants are not generating electric power at the moment, and there are reasonable grounds to believe that electric power was only generated for the 72 hours while the tests were being run at these plants," the economics ministry said in its report.
Aseradens said at the news conference that the ministry had been misled to believe that the construction of the power plants had been completed and they were ready to generate green energy.
Sadales Tikls power grid operator, which conducted the tests at the power plants and issued them the green energy licenses, should take full responsibility for the violations, Aseradens said, calling for considering firing Sadales Tikls CEO Andis Pinkulis.
The minister also noted that these had not been separate cases but a systemic fraud scheme.
A number of inquiries were launched earlier this month after Latvia's TV3 commercial broadcaster reported that several energy companies had obtained green energy licenses by cheating in tests.
According to the TV3 report, after failing to finish work on their renewable energy systems on time, seven operators of combined heat and power plants still managed to keep their green energy licenses by fraudulently presenting energy produced by portable generators as green energy during tests conducted by Sadales Tikls.
If undetected, the alleged fraud could cost tens of millions of euros to consumers over the next decade, according to the TV3 report.
