ORLEN to build Poland’s largest gas-fired CHP plant

The CHP plant, with a state-of-the-art combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT), will supply steam and electricity to the Płock Production Plant, while any surplus of electricity is to be supplied to the National Power Grid. The new unit will cogenerate heat and electricity. The advanced cogeneration technology based on natural gas, which is environmentally friendly and beneficial in terms of CO2 emissions, will be similar to the process used in the CCGT unit at Włocławek. Both units will offer high efficiency, low environmental impacts, and high utilisation rates throughout a year. 3 TWh of electricity produced at Płock will be sold to external customers in Poland, while steam will be used entirely by ORLEN Group’s production facilities and by local customers.

Our industrial heat and power generation projects based on natural gas will, first and foremost, markedly enhance the operational excellence of our downstream segment, which comprises refinery and petrochemical production, sale of fuels and petrochemical products, as well as sale of energy and heat. Gas-fired cogeneration brings climate-related benefits and is, to a large extent, environmentally neutral, which remains one of our top priorities. I do believe that our projects are not only an optimum solution in every respect for the ORLEN Group, but also boost Poland’s energy security and support the development of the regions in which we operate. A maximum of 700-1,000 people, mainly subcontractors, will be working on each construction site in the peak period - said Piotr Chełmiński, member of the PKN ORLEN Management Board responsible for Business Development and Power and Heat Generation.

PKN ORLEN signed a contract for the turn-key delivery of a CCGT unit with the Siemens consortium, in Płock in late 2014. The parties also entered into a comprehensive O&M contract for the unit’s key equipment, covering a period of approximately twelve years from the launch of the CHP plant.

To date, PKN ORLEN has secured most of the permits required for the Płock project, including a network connection agreement with Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne and Gaz-System. At the end of July, the final rotor alignment test was successfully completed for the gas turbine at the Siemens factory in Berlin. The heart of the Płock CHP plant, a nearly 400-tonne gas turbine, will be shipped to Płock by sea and then up the Vistula river. In 2016, it will be connected to the steam turbine and the generator to form a powertrain. The turbine, offering generation efficiency of more than 60%, will burn gas at the temperature exceeding 1,500°C, with very low environmental emissions. The Płock CCGT unit will use H-technology, which is the most efficient power generation technology currently available worldwide, and will be the first unit of its kind in Central Europe excluding Germany. The staffing process will be completed in early 2017, and training and preparation programmes are planned for 2018. The personnel will work on the project from the commissioning of the unit.

PKN ORLEN’s refinery and petrochemical complex at Płock currently includes a CHP plant which generates heat and power in high-efficiency cogeneration, using heavy fuel oil and gas to generate steam in boilers. The Płock unit is the largest industrial facility of its kind in Poland and one of the largest in Europe. It supplies power to PKN ORLEN’s key production plant and heat to the town of Płock, offering total electric power generation capacity of 345 MWe and thermal capacity of 2,149 MWt. A comprehensive programme designed to ensure that the existing CHP plant complies with environmental standards which will come into effect as of 2016 is nearing completion. After the new CCGT unit is brought on stream, both units will run in parallel to substantially increase operational flexibility and security of steam and electricity supplies to the Płock plant and to external customers.

The investment projects at PKN ORLEN are designed to enhance the Company’s power and heat generation potential. The current total installed capacity at PKN ORLEN’s generating assets in Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania is more than 760 MW for electrical power and nearly 5,000 MW for heat. With the two new projects in operation, installed capacity will increase by 1,060 MW and 630 MW, respectively.