858 MWe supercritical extension for Belchatow: the supercritical unit under construction at Belchatow will be Poland's largest and most efficient lignite fired plant.(LIGNITE POWER)(Cover story)

From the early 1990s onwards it was clear that major investment was needed to rehabilitate and/or replace Polish power plants, to improve operating performance and to address the effects of ageing and obsolescent technology.

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Furthermore, after a brief period when electricity consumption decreased, due to closure of obsolete production facilities and a decline in the power-intensive sectors of industry, over the past few years power demand has been increasing steadily in tandem with the country's GDP growth.

The situation in the power sector was exacerbated by Poland's joining of the European Union in May 2005, which brought the burden of additional emissions reduction obligations, with limitations on emissions by Poland as a whole and by the Polish power sector specifically.

All these factors created the necessity for the Polish power sector to embark on a very large investment programme to meet the requirements of growing power demand, increased market competition and tightening environmental regulations.

Estimates suggest that to meet these requirements some 9 GW of new or radically rehabilitated generating capacity will need to be put in operation between now and 2015.

Indigenous coal remains the mainstay of Polish power, accounting for about 152 TWh of the 162 TWh gross production in 2006 (some 94%, with oil, gas and hydro providing the rest). Lignite accounts for about a third of the coal generation.

The first big project was rehabilitation of units 1-6 of the Turow lignite fired plant, a huge undertaking that started in 1994 (with the awarding to an Alstom-led consortium of a contract to rehabilitate all six LMZ-designed 200 MW units) and continued until 2005. The first three units were uprated to 235 MWe, and the subsequent three units to 262 MWe.

Another significant project was the construction of a 460 MW supercritical lignite fired plant at Patnow (replacing two old 200 MW LMZ designed oil fired units), for which Alstom was awarded the turbine island and boiler contracts in 2001 and which is currently under commissioning.

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The next key phase in the replacement of old generating capacity in Poland was the start of construction of the world's first supercritical CFB plant, at the Lagisza site of PKE (Southern Poland Power Company). Lagisza is scheduled to enter commercial operation in early 2009. The boiler for this 460 MW unit is being supplied by Foster Wheeler, while in December 2003 Alstom received an EPC contract covering the turbine island package (including civil works) and the cooling system, including cooling tower.

The new 858 MWe lignite fired supercritical unit to be built at Belchatow represents a further key stage in the modernisation of Poland's power generation infrastructure.

Poland's biggest …