Investments help clean up Europe's black triangle

In 2005, the Turów power plant in Poland is saluting the completion of a large-scale reconstruction programme. The effort has saved the power plant and helped to heal the whole region.

Turów’s daring modernisation mission that has cost EUR 1.2 billion is completed. The lignite-fuelled Turów, located in the town of Bogatynia in the Polish Sudety, where the borders of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic meet, not only complies with the EU environmental standards, its emissions are even lower than required.

Yet, above all the project brings a recovery to the region that has for forty years been Europe’s “black triangle”, or one of the most dangerous sources of environmental pollutions.

“We have carried out the largest project of a power plant reconstruction in Poland and the most far-reaching effort in the whole of the region,” says Roman Walkowiak, managing director of the power plant.

The reconstruction and rehabilitation of Turów, Poland’s fourth largest electricity generator, lasted ten years. The power plant modernised six units. With a loan of USD 150 million, NIB was the main long-term financier of the project.

“NIB’s participation made it possible for the power plant to attract commercial banks with shorter maturities for full financing of the investment programme,” says Yngve Söderlund, deputy head of the region the Baltic countries and Poland at NIB.

As a result of the reconstruction, the plant has profoundly cut noxious emissions that previously caused acid rains, degradation of soil and damage of forest: during 1994-2004, emissions of sulphur dioxide decreased by 82%, nitrogen oxides by 45% and dust by 96%.

“Replacement of old coal boilers was a key element of the modernisation process. Modern equipment allows achieving an almost complete desulphurisation of flue gases, controlled combustion helps reduce the creation of nitrogen oxides, while dust is not let out to the atmosphere by modern electrostatic filters,” explains Pawel Krzyzanowski, head of the environmental department at the power plant.

The consumption of water at the power plant shrank by 40% to 1.5 cubic metres per megawatt-hour. The modernisation project also included the construction of a sanitary sewage treatment plant, a limestone milling plant, land reclamation of the nearby coalmine and the establishment of pollution emission monitoring.

In 1994, when the project started, modernisation was simply a question of survival for the power plant, the only Polish power plant of the twelve located in the “black triangle”, all fuelled with lignite from brown coal mines.

The perilously high concentration of pollutants turned the region into one of Europe’s environmentally dirtiest spot in the 1970s. The “black triangle” was responsible for about 30% of sulphur dioxide emission in the continent.

“About 10% of pollutions in the Nordic countries came from Poland. The situation changed in the early 1990s after the collapse of the communist system in Central and Eastern Europe,” says Olle Westling, researcher at the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute.

He believes there is no longer a “black triangle” in Europe: “Being largely dependent on what happens in other European countries, Sweden has definitely gained a lot from the modernisation of industrial facilities in Central and Eastern Europe, including the reconstruction of Turów. But recovery of acidified soil and damaged forests will take many tens of years.”

The socio-economic aspect of the modernisation is of no less value. In the small Polish town of Bogatynia with 20,000 inhabitants, Turów keeps 1,900 people employed with the power plant and 3,000 working in its nearby lignite mines.

The reconstructed power plant will be using the existing brown coal mines until 2035. Then, the deposit, now estimated at 600 million tons, will have been exhausted.

Although the main modernisation programme is closed, the power plant is already considering new investment in environmental improvements-primarily further reduction of nitrogen oxides-as required by a new directive of the European Commission.

Johan Ljungberg, head of environmental analysis at NIB, shares the optimism about the power plant’s future environmental investments: “Turów has a very valuable experience of modernisation and implementation of environmental protection measures. So far, they have achieved even larger reductions of flue gas emissions than was previously planned.”

Environmental monitoring shows that the plant’s emissions were lower than the allowed max at the end of 2004-by 28% for sulphur dioxide and by 46% for nitrogen oxides.

“Now we are ready for competition in the energy market,” says Mr Walkowiak.

The liberalisation of the European energy market will allow the power generator to export electricity and heat abroad in the coming years. Turów, together with power plants in Belchatów and Opole as well as two lignite mines, became in October 2004 a part of Poland’s largest energy producer, state-owned BOT Górnictwo i Energetyka. The holding is set to keep on investing several billions of euros in order to create a strong national energy corporation within ten years.

The Turów thermal power plant contributes 7% of electricity produced in Poland. Turów holds international ISO certificates in environmental management, quality and safety. The power plant has been recognised as Poland’s most environment-proactive enterprise in a number of governmental competitions. In 2004, the production of electricity at the power plant exceeded 11 million megawatt-hours, up by 11% compared to 2003. The plant’s sales increased by 4% in 2004 to EUR 436 million.