Bratislava, 3 March 2017
The new modernized boiler house for burning wood chips Sever in Pezinok is already in trial operation. Termming, a member of the ENGIE Group, has already taken several measures in the past to modernise its heating system. Another of the planned investments was the reconstruction of the boiler house and the change of fuel to a renewable energy source – biomass.
Termming took over the lease of the Pezinok thermal power plant in 2013 with a 20-year contract. Within the first five years, it committed to invest more than EUR 5.3 million, mainly in thermal equipment. The first of the investments was the replacement of heat distribution pipes and the installation of heat transfer stations. The second measure was the modernisation of the North boiler house.
“The project was launched in the autumn of 2015, construction started in June 2016 and was completed at the end of last year. ENGIE Services was the general contractor for the construction, carrying out all the work from the preparation and design of the project documentation, through construction management, HSE coordination and engineering. The boiler house, which has 6 gas boilers with a nominal capacity of 2.6 MW, required such a renovation as it had been operating for 30 years without major changes and investments,” says Ing. Juraj Sochor, Director of the Bratislava Region, ENGIE Services. Currently, Termming in Pezinok supplies heat for 2,850 households, commercial premises and civil buildings. The company’s main goal was to increase the efficiency and quality of heat production, as well as to promote renewable energy sources, which it considers to be a sustainable and efficient solution in the long term. During the renovation works, the construction works included the complete renovation of the building structures, the rehabilitation of the statics of the steel structure of the building, the construction of a new machine room, the construction of new areas such as the facilities for the boiler room operators, the construction of an internal wood chip storage made of monolithic concrete and finally the installation of new technology for the handling and combustion of biomass.
“This refurbishment brought the novelty of an automatic bunker for 200 tonnes of fuel. The bunker is made so that loaders do not have to be used, thus reducing the dust and noise that was generated during handling and could have been a nuisance to residents living near the boiler house. In other boiler houses, with the exception of Liptovský Mikuláš, we have external storage facilities where the wood chips are moved to the daily bunkers with the help of a loader. The advantage of this boiler house is therefore the use of an indoor warehouse – the wood chips are dumped into a pit and from there they are moved by conveyor to a fully covered fuel dump, where they are spread out over the whole area with the help of scatterers,” explains Juraj Sochor. In the newly reconstructed boiler room there are 2 biomass boilers with a total output of 3 MW, 2 backup hot-water gas boilers, the aforementioned fully automatic fuel transport and storage system and an automatic storage tank for 200 tons of fuel.
“Renewable energy is a green solution on a global scale and one of the ways to contribute to promoting sustainable development and increasing energy security. That is why I am glad that our company is also involved and investing in similar solutions. We believe that with this successful project we will also be able to make our services more efficient and contribute to environmental protection,” concludes Juraj Sochor.