In early May of this year, the contractor, RAFAKO SA, started reinforcing the soil with piles and reinforced concrete columns. The earthworks began on April 16th with excavations at the planned location of future buildings for electrical machinery and unit control room. Since the beginning of February, the contractor conducted works related to organization of the construction site, building utility areas, fencing the site and connecting the utilities necessary for the construction works.
The CHP Plant is located within an operating coking plant, which adds complexity to the construction process. On the other hand, the advantage of such a solution is that it uses the land remaining after outdated coking plant facilities have been demolished, which is very important in the highly urbanized areas of the city of Radlin. Reusing industrial land saves green and agricultural areas.
The construction works are performed under the contract signed on 12 June 2019 by JSW KOKS SA and RAFAKO SA to build a 32 MWe combined heat and power unit fired with coke oven gas equipped with a heating element with a capacity of 37 MWt.
The project completion deadline was set at 29 months after the date of the contract. According to plans, the new unit will be commissioned for use in Q4 2021.
Ultimately, the Radlin CHP Plant will replace the Marcel CHP Plant owned by Polska Grupa Górnicza SA as it is slated to be shut down at the end of 2022. The unit built in the Radlin coking plant owned by JSW KOKS SA will be one of the most modern facilities of this type in Poland, meeting all of the European Union’s requirements, in particular the BAT conclusions for large combustion plants (LCP BAT). According to the assumptions, the Radlin CHP Plant will satisfy the coking plant’s energy needs, while the surplus electricity will feed into the National Energy System. Heat in the form of heating water will be supplied to meet the needs of the Marcel Section at PGG’s ROW Coal Mine (21 MWt) and of Radlin’s residents (16 MWt). JSW KOKS SA assumes that it would produce approximately 486 thous. GJ of steam for industrial processes and about 209 thous. GJ of heating water as well as 196 thous. MWh of electricity.
This project is also very important in increasing the economic efficiency of the coke plant’s production process and for the environment. Own energy production from coke oven gas that was previously wasted, will allow the company to eliminate reliance on external suppliers, making one more step towards circular economy. The investment project will include two steam boilers with the total capacity of approximately 104 MWt, installation of a 32 MWe extraction-condensing steam turbine, a 37 MWt thermal unit and auxiliary installations. The primary energy source for the unit will be the surplus coke oven gas – approximately 180 million cubic meters annually.
Construction of the co-generation power unit in Radlin was included in the Program for Silesia and is the key part of an ambitious plan of modernizing the Radlin coke plant, which includes many other important investment tasks.
