Serbian Thermal Power Plants to Use Waste as Fuel – EPS Commissions Project for Co-Combustion at TENT and TPP Kostolac B

Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) has published the tender for the preparation of investment-technical documentation for the co-combustion of alternative fuels at the Thermal Power Plant Nikola Tesla (TENT) and the TPP Kostolac B.

According to the technical specification of the tender, EPS is considering the possibility of using prepared waste as additional fuel in the production of electrical and heating energy at the thermal power plants.

– In addition to removing waste in an environmentally-friendly fashion, the co-combustion of waste would reduce the consumption of the main fuel – the lignite coal in the process of the production of electrical and heating energy – the document says.

The plan is to process the system of co-combustion within the combustion process at the furnaces of the blocks A3, A4 and A5 at TENT A through this project, through Phase 1, and then, in Phase 2, subsequently at the furnaces of the TPP Kostolac B as well.

The project needs to determine the adequate share of waste in the total fuel for the existing mill types and furnaces in said blocks.

The investment-technical documentation will also help define the necessary equipment, determine the scope of the investments necessary for the reconstruction of blocks, create the conditions for the location requirements and obtain positive opinions from the Republic Revision Commission and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, all to the end of testing the cost-effectiveness and the risk of implementing this method at Serbian thermal power plants.

The risks, as said, entail the content of mercury in SRF (a kind of alternative fuel derived from waste), as well as the content of chlorine, which contributes to corrosion, and the impact on the total emissions of EPS needs to be assessed as well.

Also, it is added, it needs to be defined which permits and for which kind of waste need to be obtained for the purpose of temporary storage, as well as the permits that EPS needs to obtain as a waste treatment operator.

The tender expires on August 16.

The initiative of EPS for testing the possibilities of co-combustion is made in the midst of the world energy crisis and only a few days after the prime minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, stated that “the upcoming winter will be difficult” and that Serbia was negotiating about additional coal quantities, because there were problems with the excavation of our own coal.

Let us remind that, in mid-June, the government approved for EPS to import four million tons of coal by the end of 2023 in order to secure unobstructed operations of the Obrenovac thermal power plants, which cover a half of the electricity needs in the country.

It should be said that the announcement of the use of waste as fuel at thermal power plants in Serbia is not new – EPS officials talked about it around ten years ago too. Vladimir Djordjevic, the former director of EPS and the then executive director for renewable energy sources at this public enterprise, said in an interview for Vreme that EPS was supposed to find a way to achieve the co-combustion of coal and municipal waste at thermal power plants, which often has an even greater energy value than our lignite.

B. P.

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd

Vlada Republike Srbije

PE Elektroprivreda Srbije

EPS

Government of Serbia

Ana Brnabić

Vladimir Đorđević

TENT

TPP Nikola Tesla

TPP Kostolac B

waste

fuel

coal

lignite

import

co combustion

project

energy crisis