Construction starts on Serbian biomass power station started
• Energy • Technical Articles • South-East European INDUSTRIAL Мarket - issue 4/2015
A biomass power plant will be constructed in Krusevac, Central Serbia. That was announced by Building Energy, multinational company operating as Global Integrated IPP in the Renewable Energy Industry, and the city of Krusevac, Serbia. The facility will be the first one in the country combining electric and thermal energy and will have an installed capacity of respectively 4.8 MWe and 20 MWt. The plant will generate 38.4 GWh of electric power and 86 GWh of thermal power per year.
The implementation of the project worth a 27-million euro investment is among the arrangements in a memorandum of understanding, which was signed between Building Energy and the city of Krusevac. The contract provides for a close collaboration for the creation of an electricity generation pole from renewable sources.
Building Energy has been present in the Balkans market since 2014 with company offices in Belgrade, from which it manages and coordinates the development of its projects in Serbia, Croatia, Republika Srpska, Romania, Montenegro, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
”The biomass power plant will be fuelled by woodchips coming from the cleaning of Serbian woods. The sale of thermal energy, resulting from a ten-year agreement between Building Energy and the Krusevac thermal power plant, will largely contribute to satisfy the thermal needs of the city, which has about 110,000 inhabitants. The sale of electric power, instead, will be regulated by a contract with the national utility operator EPS, according to the Serbian feed-in-tariff rules”, the company informs.
The project is expected to create 70 new job positions during the plant construction, and 40 more positions, between specialized staff and workers, for the plant management and maintenance activities. Additional jobs will be created from complementary activities, such as the woods cleaning and the biomass transportation to the plant.
”In addition to this strong economic impact, the territory will also benefit in terms of CO2 savings, around 38,400 tons per year, achieved through both a higher cycle efficiency and the reduction in the use of carbon as the energy source of the current teleheating”, the company further explains. The construction works of the power plant and the beginning of electrical and thermal power production are expected from the winter of 2017-2018.
”We are happy to develop, with the support of the city of Krusevac, the country’s biggest plant combining electrical and thermal power in the renewables sector. We believe that this project can contribute to help the Balkan countries to fully exploit the potential and the resources the territory is rich in.
The high availability of woodchip biomass in Serbia, together with our know-how and experience in the use of diversified technology will allow a modernization process to begin, by substituting the current thermal power plants, fuelled by fossil fuel, contributing to align the country to the European standard of CO2 emissions”, said Paolo Rossi, Managing Director of Building Energy Eastern Europe.
Keywords: biomass power plant, Building Energy, Global Integrated IPP, Renewable Energy Industry, electric power, renewables sector
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