A short report. PromoBio project ( ) IEE/10/470 SI

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1 A short report PromoBio project ( ) IEE/10/470 SI

2 The aim of this report is to describe the state-of-the-art of the regional bioenergy development in the Płock County in east-central Poland. The report is a part of the background studies for an Intelligent Energy Europe project Promotion to regional bioenergy initiatives (PromoBio) ( ), which aims to activate regional bioenergy strategy work and to provide help in establishing new bioenergy business projects in selected target regions in Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The project has selected Płock County as one of its target regions. When it comes to biomass production, particularly the Gostynin Lake District, located within the county, has a high potential due to abundance of farm and forest land. The objective of this report is to describe the current bioenergy potential and use in the Płock County and to depict the currently used business models, existing production plants, district heating network and supporting structures for bioenergy development. The report also describes shortly the bottlenecks in bioenergy development in the region and in Poland in general. One of the key objectives of the PromoBio project is to activate the regional bioenergy programme development in the selected target regions in Poland, Romania and Slovakia. To serve this purpose, this report may be used as a starting point and background material for preparing a regional bioenergy programme for Płock County. This report is a part of a series of background reports of the PromoBio project describing the state-of-the-art in the Polish target region of Płock County, Romanian target region Centru and Banská Bystrica Region in Slovakia as well as existing bioenergy programmes in North Karelia region in Finland and Lower Austria in northeast Austria. All the reports are available from the website Writing of the report has been supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme (IEE) of the European Commission. The sole responsibility for the content of this report lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EACI nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The report is available on the internet at: 1

3 The Płock County is located in the Masovian Voivodeship in east-central Poland. Its administrative capital is the city of Płock, although the city constitutes a separate city county. The county covers an area of 1, square kilometres and its total population is 106,455 inhabitants. The county contains three towns: Gąbin, Drobin and Wyszogród. Over 90% of the population lives in rural areas. not feasible due to the polish biodiesel market and legislation on biofuels. Polski Cukier s second investment in bioenergy had more success and began producing straw briquettes in Mała Wieś in 2007 as part of converting old sugar production plants. Another bioenergy projects in Płock County include biomass boilers heating municipality buildings in Łąck, a primary school in Cieszew and the Green School in Sendeo Mały. Though the county in mostly rural only about 50% of the people work in agriculture. The main source of livelihood for the people living in the county, as well as the main source of income for the county itself is the petrochemical plant belonging to PKN Orlen a magnate on the Polish petrol market and one of the biggest producers of petroleum products from crude oil, in Central Europe. The use of bioenergy in Płock County is limited and mostly deals with solid biomass used for central heating in single buildings, without a dedicated heating network fuelled by biomass. There have been three major bioenergy projects in the region. The first one was the attempt at producing biofuels from sugar beets in Borowiczek by the National Sugar Company Polski Cukier but unfortunately a feasibility study showed that the project was Bioenergy in Poland In 2008, renewable energy sources produced 228,277 TJ amounting to 7.7% of Poland s total primary energy production. The use of renewables has been on a steady increase from 6.5% and 7.1% in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Solid biomass contributed to 86.9% of RES energy production. The install base of 232 MWe produced 3,267 GWh of electricity from biomass which equals to about 49.7% of total RES electricity produced. About 0.96 million Mg of biomass were used to produce electricity in 2007 in addition to about 4.5 million Mg for heating purposes. 2

4 Wood biomass Płock County s wood resources can be broken down into three categories, it s forest resources, residue wood from Płock Orchards, and residue wood from roadsides and urban areas. Forests cover 16.7% of the territory of the Płock County. The total forest area is 30,016 ha. Based on statistics from m 3 of firewood is harvested per year as well as m 3 of residue wood leftover from factories, with respective energy potentials of GJ and m 3. This adds up to GJ per year of wood biomass potential energy available annually and makes up the majority of wood biomass available in Płock County. Last but not least the maintenance of Płock County s roads and urban areas produces m 3 of wood with the energy potential of GJ. All of this contributes to the m 3 of wood biomass produced annually in Płock County. The total energy potential is GJ which roughly equals to almost 2.7 Mg of coal. The second category is wood residue from clean-up work at Płock County parks and greenery maintenance. This annual clean-up yields is 358 m 3 of wood biomass with an energy potential of GJ. Table 1. Total wood resources and annually available energy potential for Płock County. Wood resources, m 3 /year Energy potential, GJ/year Table 2. Forest energy potential for the Płock Forest District. Volume, m 3 /year Energy potential, GJ Firewood Factory residue wood Total energy potential p

5 Table 3. Biomass resources from Płock parks and greenery. Area, ha Biomass resources, m 3 /year Energy potential, GJ/year Table 4. Wood residue resources from roadsides and urban areas and their energy potential. Municipality and district roads, km Total resources, m 3 /year Energy potential, GJ/year Agricultural biomass In Płock County straw holds the biggest potential when it comes to biomass. The volume of straw produced by the many agriculture entities in the county is one of the highest in the country. Unfortunately it is also one the most overlooked source of biomass when considering fuel for biomass boilers. It is mostly for agricultural production such as fodder for cattle etc. However, even when we consider the amount of straw produced and the amount that is used for various purposes the total is Mg annually. The total energy potential of unused straw is GJ per year. This means that the energy potential of agricultural biomass is more than nine times that of wood biomass. Table 5. Straw energy potential in the Płock County. Crop Straw production Straw used Total Energy potential Straw availability indicator ha Mg/year Mg/year Mg/year GJ/year 35 mw 4

6 The most important existing bioenergy value chain in the Płock County is the chain supplying the municipal heating plant located in Łąck. It consists of a building, housing two 500 kw and one 200 kw biomass boilers (total power of 1.2 MW) with automatic fuel feeders and a 150 m 2 fuel storage. The fuels used are straw, woodchips and saw dust, acquired from farmers and loggings in the municipality s area. Łąck is a rural municipality in Płock County. The area of the municipality is a part of the Gostynin Lake District. When it comes to biomass production, this area has a high potential due to abundance of farm and forest land. At first the municipality considered building four separate heating plants using conventional fuel boilers to satisfy the area s growing heat demand: 100 kw coal boiler heating a preschool; 60 kw coal boiler heating the municipality offices and a health centre; 420 kw coal boiler heating a school; 570 kw oil boiler heating a sports hall. However, for environmental reasons and for the sake of a developing tourist industry in the Gostynin Lake District it decided to build boilers using RES. This means that the biomass heating plant provides heat energy for over 8,400 m 2 of building floor area. The outcomes are as follows: The biomass heating plant provides energy for 5 important institutions in Łąck. It supplies 17.7 GJ of heat every day, 3,932 GJ a year. Since the new boilers became operational they have generated 31,456 GJ of heat. Savings of 17% over conventional fuel boilers. The savings will increase as price of traditional fuels continues to increase. Decrease in pollution emissions and, therefore, improvement in air quality are important to the developing tourism industry in the area. Elicitation of farmers to grow energy crops for biomass. Figure 1. Funding of the municipal heating plant. Total cost PLN. 5

7 The most popular business model in Poland consists of power plants announcing an open tender for the delivery of a certain amount of biomass, for a defined period of time. The biomass used is most often wood chips. The mechanism at work in Poland goes as follows: The forest district or private forest owner sells wood to companies which use them in their various industries. After the wood is processed the remaining wood residue and woodchips are sold either to companies who use them, or as in the example of the Łąck municipal heating station sold and delivered by the company after winning a tender. The Polish model has the advantage of a shorter supply chain. Most often it consists of the forest owner, be it state or private, a company using wood and the end user, as intermediate transport or harvesting companies rarely appear. The problem is the fact that the tenders end users announce are mostly won due to the lowest asking price and the quality of the delivered biomass is seldom considered. This also means that there is limited competition where it comes to the tenders. This can be shown in the table below using different colours. The same colour means the same entity. Biomass Owner State forest enterprise Forest owner Farmer Biomass harvesting Contractor Forest owner Chip producer Chip transport Chip seller Chip consumer Contractor Contractor Contractor Power plant 6

8 Bioenergy production plants in Poland are almost exclusively owned by the state, with the exception of a few and far between privately owned integrated biomass plants?. Out of the bioenergy installations in Płock County the biomass heating plant in the Łąck municipality is the best example of a bioenergy plant in the region. The installation is described in detail in a Fact sheet for the PromoBio project (see but its main characteristics are: Two 500 kw and one 200 kw biomass boilers (combined power of 1.2 MW) with automated fuel feeders, using straw from local farmers and wood logs and woodchips from loggings in the Łąck municipality area; The heat energy produced is distributed to 5 public buildings of 8,400 m 2 in combined area; The heating plant operates during heating season between September and May. When not in use during the warmer months it undergoes regular maintenance; During the heating season it supplies 17.7 GJ a day to heat the 5 public buildings connected to the plant. Since it became operational in 2004 the plant has produced 31,456 GJ of heating energy; The plant has 4 employees who oversee the plant in shifts and are assigned to maintenance jobs for the municipality outside heating season. Table 6 lists the costs of the heating plant in Table 6. Costs of the Łąck municipality heating plant (1,000 PLN) in Cost 1,000 PLN Fuel (energy wood) 226,188 Additional logging 38,324 4 employees 82,250 Electricity 30,130 Equipment repairs 17,081 Equipment replacement 6,562 Environmental tariff 2,884 Monitoring (outside of heating season) 1,091 If compared to a heating system using coal boilers, it has been calculated that the heating cost savings of biomass boilers are around 17%. Table 7 illustrates the heating cost comparison. Table 8 lists the operating plants in the Płock County utilising renewable energy sources. 7

9 Table 7. Heating cost comparison of the Łąck municipality heating plant. Heating boiler Costs, 1,000 PLN Biomass boilers 544,812 Coal boilers 627,543 Savings 17% Table 8. List of operating plants using RES in Płock County. Plant Location Biomass heating plant Łąck municipality Description Capacity (kw) Primary School Cieszewo municipality "Green School" Sendeo Mały municipality Trębki Szczawin Kościelny municipality Pęczki Kozłowo municipality Schools in Siedlin municipality heating boiler 48 heating boiler 80 biofuel from rapeseed production pellet boilers biomass boiler The city of Płock has its own district heating network and the industrial plants of the region are connected to the grid. However while a couple of larger towns have a limited network dedicated to the heating of municipality infrastructure, most have individual heating systems which use coal, oil, gas, and what is a positive trend, biomass. 8

10 The main supporting body of RES and biomass development in Płock County is the Płock County Council which, for the third time, continues its commitment to the protection of natural resources and environment with their Environmental Protection Programme for Płock County in This programme was accepted by the local governing bodies in October The programme a continuation of the sustainable development and environmental policies is in line with the 74 th article of the Polish Constitution which obligates the public officials to protect the environment for current and future generations as well as to ensure energy security for the region as well as the Masovian Voivodeship sustainable development policies. The attitude of the Płock County Council is a shining example of the governing bodies going beyond their obligations of a purely administrative and regulatory role and showing independent initiative. With their limited resources for realization the Council focused on outlining aims that were needed to achieve as well as challenges and problems that had to be overcome in order to protect the regions natural environment without sacrificing its energy security. A key factor in the success of the programmes is the Councils involvement of all stakeholders into the planning and realization processes based on mutual cooperation and partnership with local and government administrative bodies, economic subjects as well as union and social entities. Other key actors in Płock County s sustainable development are the institutions that co finance the County s programme. These include: National and Voivodeship Funds for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚ and WFOŚ) These government institutions are the core of financing government environmental programmes. They are tasked with effective management and use of European development funds and funds for the modernization of environmental infrastructure. They can provide loans and grants, covering up to 50% and 80% of the investment from the Voivodeship and National Funds respectively, to projects which gain financial support from the European Commission. Masovian Voivodeship Regional Operation Programme between An environmental protection programme of the Masovian Voivodeship, which aims to make the region more attractive for investments and, thus, provide new work opportunities. Its main focus is maintaining the environmental, social and economic balance in the region. Additional national and regional regulations concerning environmental protection and sustainable development: National Environmental Policy with prospects until 2016 passed by the Polish Sejm on the 22 nd May 2009; National Development Strategy accepted by the Council of Ministers on the 29 th November 2006; National Consistency Strategy (National Strategic Reference Framework) accepted by the Council of Ministers on the 2 nd August 2006; Poland s Energy Policy until 2025 accepted by the Council of Ministers on the 4 th January 2005; Development Strategy for the Masovian Voivodeship until 2020 update, accepted by the Masovian Voivodeship Sejmik on the 29 th May 2006; 9

11 Spatial Management Plan for the Masovian Voivodeship accepted by the Masovian Voivodeship Sejmik in 2004; Regional Operation Programme for the Masovian Voivodeship between , accepted by the decision of the European Commission on the 10 th October 2007; Masovian Voivodeship Environmental Protection Programme with prospects until 2014 accepted by the Masovian Voivodeship Sejmik on the 19 th February 2007, currently being updated; Possibilities of using RES Programme for the Masovian Voivodeship accepted by the Masovian Voivodeship Sejmik on the 9 th October 2006; Development Strategy for Płock County until 2015 accepted by the Płock County Council on the 26 th June 2001; Local Development Plan for Płock County for accepted by the Płock County Council on the 16 th July 2004; Environmental Protection and Waste Management Programme in Płock County until 2010 accepted by the Płock County Council on the 16 th December

12 A number of bottlenecks have been identified in the development of the use of renewable energy sources in Poland. They apply on the country level as well as on regional level. a. Inefficient or insufficient administrative procedures Due to a lack of a single act or law regulating the RES sector, the administrative? framework of renewable energy is perceived as a major barrier, causing issues throughout the planning and realization process of implementing bioenergy: o Long time required to obtain a building permit; o Insufficient knowledge of local level officers about RES ; o Discriminative administrative procedures; o Common regulations understood and applied differently in different regions; o Resistance of local authorities to RES; o Lack of information on the RES investment process; o Long permitting process for RES technologies. b. Competing public interests at the administrative level There is a lack of a clear government policy on bioenergy. While the Polish Energy Policy for 2030, published in November 2009 by the Ministry of Economy and enacted by the Council of Ministers, created a target of RES generated energy at 15% of total generated energy, no clear numbers, goals or ways to achieve them have been specified. Many NGOs also argue that the 2030 energy policy promotes state owned large atomic and hydro-electric plants and co-generation coal plants rather than RES. c. Inexistent or insufficient spatial planning A significant barrier in Poland is the inexistent or insufficient spatial planning. Only approximately 20% of the country s area is covered with local development plans for spatial planning. If there are no spatial plans for an area taken into consideration for an investment, the investor is obligated to obtain a conditions on the site s development decision defining on what terms the area of the property can be used. The process significantly prolongs the initiation phase of the project. Even in areas where spatial planning does exist, RES are rarely taken into consideration, thus, forcing the investors to obtain the conditions * + decision. The barrier is more common for local administrations in villages and small towns as local officials have limited knowledge of bioenergy and RES. This often causes the installation of bioenergy technology units, such as biomass CHP plants, with reference to spatial planning being assessed incompetently. This increases the importance of this barrier as most of the bioenergy potential in Poland is located in these small towns and villages. d. Barriers for applying technology Connecting new bioenergy plants to the existing power grid has proved a challenge due to its out-dated and heavy load status. Technical specifications of RES equipment and systems that should be met by default are not specified. Additionally the technical specifications of bioenergy technologies are not expressed in legislative terms or EU standards. On a positive note, these factors do not affect the operation of the internal market though they have an effect on how the application of RES technologies in Poland is perceived on the international level. The only issue here is the lack of national and regional funding from the National and Voivodeship Funds for Environmental Protection and Water Management as they do not specify technical specifications in their funding support programme requirements. Instead, 11

13 the requirements focus on the economic feasibility of the investments. While this is not an issue for small scale projects (<3 MW) where economic benefits are easily observed, it proves a key barrier for medium size projects more aimed at environmental protection than economic gain. e. Barriers for integrated technologies Official rules on building integrated RES technologies are yet to be developed in Poland. There are no renewable obligations for buildings on a national or regional level. Electricity created at building level is rarely fed into the grid system and sold to benefit from green certificate tariffs as it is more financially beneficial to use the electricity in-house. Integrated technologies are only installed in new buildings or buildings undergoing major renovations. This leaves the vast majority of buildings in Poland to rarely consider integrated RES technologies. Additionally, while there are many different support programmes for business and public sector buildings, there is no funding programme for privately owned buildings. This means that even if private owners (e.g. medium size farmers who are capable producing their own biomass fuel) are willing, they often do not have the funds to install integrated technologies. A barrier specific to integrated biomass installations and biomass storage in small to medium towns is often neighbour opposition. 12

14 State-of-the-art of the regional bioenergy development in the Płock County, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland A short report 2012 Author: Karolina Loth-Babut, Ryszard Wnuk, Alexander Szymaoski Photos: Juha Laitila, other photos made available by the Gosnin Lake Distric Tourist Municipalities Association Editing: Elina Välkky The report is available on the internet at: 13