A renewable energy plant to be built in Lublin
Lublin, a city in the east of Poland, has been chosen as a location for a biomass Combined Heat & Power (CHP) plant.
The investor is Norwegian company called TergoPower. The renewable energy company operates in Norway, Sweden and Poland.
The plant is to produce energy from fired straw bales. The location – Lubelskie region – was chosen due to large, readily-available supplies of the product. The material is to be provided by around 700 farmers in the area of 120 km around Lublin.
TergoPower also plans to open 8 to 10 warehouses for storing straw. Before warehousing, straw is pressed into bales. These will be transported to the plant by rail and cars.
The amount of the agricultural by-product to be consumed by the plant is estimated at 280 thousand tons per year. The investor does not need to be concerned about the availability of straw. It abounds in the region. A large portion of Lubelskie is agricultural land.
The plant will have electrical output of 49.9 MW which is the equivalent of energy consumption of 12,000 households. As the Norwegian company states, the plant „will be an exemplar power station that can help set the benchmark for future power station design”.
In the production process, straw will be burned to produce steam, which will in turn move a turbine and in this way generate electricity. Apart from heat and energy, ash is produced. It may be used as crop fertilizer. The production is odour-free and carbon neutral.
The investment will cost 150 million euro. The plant will use straw as main biomass, but the technology also allows for wood chips to be utilized for energy production. The planned opening date is 2018. Construction works are to start in the third quarter of 2016.
The plant will employ 30 operators and will acquire straw bales from numerous local farmers.
Poland’s goal is to have 15% of energy produced to be renewable energy by 2020. This translates to 10,380.5 ktoe. The expected gross consumption of electricity from renewable energy sources in 2020 is 2,786 ktoe. Presently, most of the country’s energy is produced from coal.
Tergo Powers is planning to start another clean energy investment in Biłgoraj. A renewable energy plant is to be opened there in 2018. It is to use 140 tons of straw a year.
