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Waste incineration stove will not save Kaunas
2009-09-12
A new combined heat and power plant in Kaunas City with the number of consumers around several hundreds thousand would become an alternative to the Russian electric power, imported from Russia, which feathers the nest to several businessmen, closely related to some political characters of the country.
This brings confidence to the energy experts and specialists, though last week the head of the State Dalia Grybauskaitė made an allusion that after the shutdown of the nuclear power plant Lithuania would also manage without a new power plant in Kaunas. Suggested alternative to Kaunas residents is generating heat by combusting litter.
To produce heat to Kaunas already in 2013 thanks to a new modern thermal power plant, the capacity of which would reach around 350 megawatts, is the scope still pursued also by the initiator of this project, i.e. the company Kaunas Heat and Power Plant (KHPP). Investment into the new combined heat and power plant would make up around one billion litas.
KHPP doesn’t make any changes in its plans
During his recent visit to Lithuania Valery Golubev, the Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Russian gas concern GAZPROM, owner of KHPP, stated that KHPP had no changes in its plans to construct a power plant.
“Project of the power plant in Kaunas has not been brought to halt and has never been postponed. Investment into the energy economy was one of the conditions for privatization of the power plant and we are planning to satisfy these conditions”, emphasised Mr Golubev.
Manager of KHPP Antanas Pranculis said that decision as regards the construction of a new power plant was reached after a detailed feasibility study and analysis of the situation in the energy market: “Neither of investors would give a litas if the project were considered bringing loss. Project of the new power plant has a clear business plan beneficial to energy consumers of Kaunas and the entire Lithuania.
Kaunas residents will continue receiving one of the lowest bills for heating in Lithuania, whereas the market of the Lithuanian electric energy will witness the appearance of another serious participant in it”.
Different interests get crossed
Energy experts state that in Kaunas the interests of Russian gas and electricity suppliers get crossed. It is obvious that after the shutdown of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant Lithuania will be in the need of extra electricity from Russia.
Russian energy enterprise “Inter RAO JES”, the interests of which are represented by the company Energijos realizacijos centras, will be the principal importer of the Russian electric power. Rise of a new power plant is absolutely unprofitable to it.
The media several times wrote about the relations of Energijos realizacijos centras with the brothers and Kaunas politicians Arvydas and Ramūnas Garbaravičius.
The new power plant in Kaunas will produce electricity and heat. According to Rimantas Bakas, the Manager of the heat distribution company “Kauno energija”, controlled by Kaunas City Municipality, the EU directives include the promotion of the development of efficient combined heat and power plants.
The Lithuanian National Energy Strategy, adopted by the Seimas, also defines as rapid the development of capacities of more efficient combined heat and power plants as possible.
Recently, such power plant was constructed in Panevėžys.
Current power plant is outdated
“Current equipment at Kaunas Heat and Power Plant are old. They may be repaired, but their efficiency and costs will be far from those of the new technologies.
The power plant may be compared to the formerly famous cars “Moskvich”, Zhiguli” and others, which used to be easily repaired, however, neither their comfort nor maintenance or fuel costs could be equalled to modern vehicles”, said Mr Bakas.
To his mind, Kaunas City will not need so much of electric power that is supposed to be generated by the new power plant.
In the meantime, electricity generated by Elektrėnai Power Plant will be more expensive than the one produced at Kaunas and Vilnius combined heat and power plants. The rate of fuel conversion into power at Elektrėnai will be at a lower level by 40 %, whereas at the other mentioned combined heat and power plants – by 90 %.
Academician Jurgis Vilemas, the Chairman of the Council of Lithuanian Energy Institute expects that the new thermal power plant in Kaunas will demonstrate more efficient performance as compared to the new block under construction in Elektrėnai.
Taking into consideration that energy supply will exceed the demand, it may be concluded that the benefit will be felt among consumers too.
According to the academician, higher competition between the energy producers and suppliers will arise after the shutdown of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant.
Foreign enterprises will offer electric energy to Lithuania and it may happen that imported electric power will be cheaper than the local. Power plant was worthwhile being constructed last year when gas prices were at an especially high level.
Waste would be insufficient
It has already been more than a year that there have been talks in Kaunas about the possibility to ensure heating of the city by litter combustion. In November 2007, under the order of “Kauno energija”, scientists from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) carried out a study to analyze the possibility to construct a municipal waste-fired power plant.
Conclusion of the scientists was that the overall number of municipal waste, collected in Kaunas region, would be enough for the production of only up to 16 % of heat necessary to Kaunas City.
Kęstutis Buinevičius, Associate Professor of the Department of Thermal and Nuclear Energy of Kaunas University of Technology, says that waste incineration at power plants is useful because of the usage of secondary resources, but the technology itself is expensive.
Waste-fired power plant may be in the capacity of 50-60 megawatts. However, even after the usage of the waste from the entire Kaunas region, it would be insufficient in order to produce considerable amount of heat to Kaunas City.
Such power plant could generate at maximum 20 % of necessary heat.
According to Nerijus Rasburskis, the director of energy consultancy and design company AF-TSP, even given the most optimistic scenario, i.e. once 250 thousand tons of domestic waste suitable for incineration are collected in one year in Kaunas, Marijampolė and Alytus counties, it would be possible to arrive at a capacity of only 80-100 megawatts of heat production or capacity of 25-30 megawatts of a power plant respectively.
Problem is ecological
As the Manager of KHPP Antanas Pranculis states waste-fired power plants are especially expensive.
When pursuing such projects costs are estimated not only as regards the power plant construction, environmental systems of productions process, but also the costs incurred due to the disposal of toxic substances after waster incineration.
Jonas Koryzna, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of “Kauno energija”, believes in the falsity of the spread opinion that purportedly the city may be heated by burning its litter only.
“Visually speaking, would it be warm at home after burning all the litter, accumulated by the family, in a stove? Litter is not wood, after all”, said Mr Koryzna.
He states that waste incineration is only partially an energetic problem, because the key problem is an ecological one, i.e. how to reduce the amount of refuse in landfills.
Yet, Kaunas government does not refute the possibility to have a company of waste incineration and, thus, it is considering several options: to construct a new biofuel-fired power plant or adjust Petrašiūnai Power Plant for waste incineration.
Would receive cheaper heat
“Power plant in the capacity of 350 megawatts is over too much for Kaunas needs only. The new plant must be evaluated in the Lithuanian Energy Strategy. Should Kaunas become the city near a power plant, it would have cheap heat like Elektrėnai or Visaginas.
After greater production of heat at a combined heat and power plant, Kaunas City would get a right to claim the heat to be cheaper than the average of heat prices in Lithuania”, said Mr Koryzna.
Already now heat produced by KHPP costs only 10.48 cents per kilowatt-hour, whereas in Vilnius the price is higher by about 1 cent.
New combined heat and power plant in Kaunas is planned for the production of electricity, whereas heat would be distributed to the integrated urban network. The new power plant will differ from the current one in that the use of the same amount of fuel will allow to generate a greater quantity of electricity and heat.
The most essential advantage of the power plant is higher efficiency. In addition, the new power plant, as compared to the current one, will be equipped with the most up-to-date environmental technologies in order to reduce concentration of air emissions.
Benefit to consumers
According to the scientist Mr Buinevičius, after the shutdown of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant the remaining producers will have to compete with each other. Benefit of this will be, first of all, felt by the consumers.
Then the major electric energy producer will become the Lithuanian power plant in Elektrėnai. However, energy specialists have been saying for a long time that production of energy there is expensive and fails to demonstrate efficient performance.
Equipment at the power plant is of 40-50 years old. Project of the power plant was prepared for more than 60 years ago. During this period energy sector is well underway.
Moreover, even after the construction of a new combined heat and power block in Elektrėnai, about 30 % of energy would be lost and a nearby lake would be heated.
The director of AF-TSP company Mr Rasburskis stated that the general fuel energy conversion into useful power (electricity and heat) in combined heat and power technologies fluctuated from 80 up to slightly above 90 %.
General power generation efficiency at condensed power plants, such as Elektrėnai Power Plant, amounts to around 30-40 % during the steam cycle only and about 50-58 % during the combined heat and power cycle.
© Lietuvos rytas