Poland Launches Stalowa Wola CCGT
Polish power company Tauron Energia Polska has brought online the first phase of a 450-MW combined-cycle gas turbine in Stalowa Wola and is supplying the grid, it said September 30.
“In the second half of 2020, we are completing two major projects designed to expand Tauron’s conventional capacities – the CCGT unit in Stalowa Wola and the 910-MW unit in Jaworzno. These advanced generation sources will be important contributors to Poland’s energy security,” said CEO Wojciech Ignacok. “The new CCGT project is also important to the city of Stalowa Wola and the entire province of Rzeszow.”
Built by ECSW, co-owned by Tauron and Polish gas monopoly PGNiG, the CCGT unit in Stalowa Wola will cogenerate power and heat, providing 450 MW of electrical power to the national power grid and supplying heat to residents of Stalowa Wola and Nisko. Its capacity would be sufficient to cover the energy needs of 1.2mn households. Initially, the electrical power output will be 330 MW.
PGNiG said the project was "extremely important" in stimulating gas demand in Poland and also in improving the atmosphere. The annual volume of gas consumption at Stalowa Wola will be close to 600mn m³. With a combined heat and power plant of similar size soon to be completed in Warsaw, it said it could "appreciate the role of such projects in driving gas fuel demand."
With CO2 emissions of about 360 kg/MWh and very low NOx emission intensity and virtually no SOx emissions, the plant is very clean in a country that has so much coal-fired capacity.
A backup heat source is also being built for use when the 450-MW unit goes offline. Both new heat sources – the main unit and the back-up – will replace the old 120 MWe units, soon to be retired. The boiler house is to be placed in service by the end of 2020.