Siemens to Build Polish CHP Plant

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Siemens Energy (Erlangen, Germany)has bagged a contract worth €160 million ($214 million) to construct a turnkey combined heat and power (CHP) plant in western Poland.

The plant, which will be located in the city of Gorzów Wielkopolski, will have an electricity capacity of 138-megawatts (MW) and a thermal capacity of 90 MW. It will replace an existing coal-fired unit at the site. Poland relies on coal for more than 90% of its electricity and is under pressure from the European Union (E.U.) to reduce its reliance on fossil-fuel powered electricity in favour of more renewable energy.

The Gorzów plant will be fired with nitrogen-rich natural gas from gas reserves located in western Poland, which Siemens maintained has a 'lower calorific value' than conventional natural gas. This will contribute to the plant's high fuel efficiency rating of 84%.

Siemens will supply two SGT-800 gas turbines, one SST-400 steam turbine, three 11 kilovolt (kV) generators and two heat recovery steam generators. It has also been contracted to provide a long-term 12-year maintenance agreement for the gas turbines. The plant is owned PGE GiEK S.A., part of state-owned Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE) (PW:PGE) (Warsaw, Poland).

"We chose the Siemens solution because their plant offers a very high efficiency, so that it can generate electricity at a very affordable cost," said Jacek Kaczorowski, CEO of PGE GiEK. "The district heating makes the plant even more economical. Furthermore, we can use our local natural gas reserves to fire the turbines."

"The SGT-800 industrial gas turbine is a proven machine which is also very flexible with regard to fuel," added Grzegorz Nalezyty, head of the Power Generation Division at Siemens Sp. z o.o. in Poland. "Together with the SST-400 steam turbine, it will generate reliable, environmentally friendly electricity and district heat in the Gorzów power plant. In total, Siemens has sold more than 227 SGT-800 gas turbines to date, which together represent operational experience of more than 2.5 million hours."

The companies said that compared to the old coal-fired power plant, the new plant will produce 95% less sulphur dioxide emissions, over 30% less nitrogen dioxide emissions and more than 95% less particulate emissions.

Combined cycle power plants make up a key part of Siemens' Environmental Portfolio. Last year, revenue from the Portfolio totalled about €33 billion ($44 billion).

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