Power Plant No. 1 of TGC-1's Centralnaya CHPP is celebrating its 120th anniversary

The power plant of the Electrical Light Company, built in 1886, was put into operation on 16 November 1898. It was equipped with four steam boilers and six Siemens and Galske steam machines with a total capacity of 4.2 MW. The power plant became one of the three largest in St. Petersburg, along with the stations of Helios and Belgian Anonymous Society of Electric Lighting built at the time.

At the beginning of the next century the power plant was extended, in 1913–1915 a boiler facility was built, and by 1916 there were already nine turbines and eight steam machines with total installed capacity of about 49 MW, which covered the half of the city's electricity needs.

In December 1917, the station was nationalised, becoming the first state power plant. During the blockade of Leningrad the station continued to operate, providing the city with heat and electricity. In 1960, Power Plants No. 1 and No. 3 began to operate in parallel in a common heating network, which became the first experience of application of joint generation capacities. This principle was further widely used by other plants of the country.

On 30 June 2017, after a large-scale renovation at Power Plant No. 1, two power units with gas turbines with an electric capacity of 50 MW each and a total heat capacity of about 120 Gcal/h were put into operation.

Due to the sweeping upgrade, old environmentally unsafe boiler facilities in the centre of St. Petersburg were closed, inefficient obsolete capacities were removed, reliability of the North-West power system was increased in general. The most urgent issue of energy deficit in the historical centre of the city was also resolved.

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Central CHPP unites the three oldest plants of St. Petersburg and provides electricity and heat to industrial enterprises, residential and public buildings of Central, Moskovsky, Frunzensky and Admiralteisky Districts of the city. There are about 500 thousand people in the service area. The plant's installed electric capacity is 153 MW, and installed heat capacity is 1488 Gcal/h.

TGC-1 is a leading producer and supplier of electricity and heat in the North-West of Russia. TGC-1 comprises 53 power plants within four constituent entities of the Russian Federation: St. Petersburg, the Republic of Karelia, and Leningrad and Murmansk Oblasts.