The halting of construction works on the PPC's 'Ptolemaida 5' steam-electric power station is raising concerns about whether the plant will be ready to support the district heating network in the winter of 2021.
The decision to halt construction works on the PPC's 'Ptolemaida 5' unit, due to the coronavirus, has prompted discussions regarding whether the steam-electric power station will be ready to support the operation of district heating in the winter of 2021. The timeframes are suffocating, given that the initial schedule stipulated the plant would be ready by the autumn of 2021. The PPC assures regional stakeholders that there will be no issue and the station will be operationally ready on time, yet everyone remains cautious and is demanding adherence to the original plan so that the region does not run out of affordable district heating.
However, there is also concern regarding whether the thermal energy transmission pipeline from the new unit to the Ptolemaida pumping station will be ready in order for the district heating to operate. The study for this project was delivered a few days ago, costing 480,000 euros. The call for tenders for the overall project will be published in the near future. The project's budget is 34 million euros.
Delignitisation
In all previous years, district heating in Western Macedonia (meaning the heating of households and businesses using a thermal load from lignite) was supported by the PPC's steam-electric power stations in the region. However, the delignitisation that has begun in the area will leave both households and businesses in a precarious position. The problem began to manifest acutely this winter. The PPC units that produced a small thermal load did not enter the district heating system, thus leaving the entire region without heating for days. This gap was filled, as much as possible, by the municipal enterprises that had undertaken this task, albeit by spending large sums to purchase heating oil. It is indicative that in Kozani alone, the municipality was forced to spend 1,300,000 euros on heating oil from the start of the winter season until the end of March.
An SOS since 2018
The Technical Chamber of Greece – Western Macedonia Section (TEE/TDM) had already sent out the first distress signals on the matter back in 2018. In an intervention, its administration at the time pointed out the risk of thousands of households in the region being left without heating, given that they do not even possess the facilities or boilers to use oil! The then-president of the TEE/TDM, Dimitris Mavromatidis, had requested the procurement and installation of backup dual-fuel boilers (CNG gas – oil) in order to achieve energy savings, quality energy provision, and security of supply. Households and businesses heated by district heating do not have the facilities, nor even the boilers, to use another fuel, such as oil, for example. If the district heating circuit is shut down, everyone will then have to procure boilers and create new installations.
Reactions in the local community
A few days ago, SYRIZA Member of Parliament for Kozani, Kalliopi Vetta, brought the issue to Parliament, highlighting the problems caused by the reduced supply of thermal energy from the PPC. The corporation failed to uphold the agreement for the contracted amount of 137 MWth, as the Agios Dimitrios units are not channeling the necessary thermal power into the district heating system, as they were obliged to do. The same problem was also observed in Ptolemaida.
Since the beginning of the year, the district heating problem across Western Macedonia took on major dimensions due to the very low temperatures that prevailed even well into April. The PPC's decision, within the framework of delignitisation, not to input the thermal load of the region's lignite units into the network left thousands of households and businesses out in the cold. The PPC's stance provoked numerous reactions within the local community. Indicative of this is the letter sent by the employees of the region's municipal district heating enterprises, demanding the mobilisation of all local stakeholders. As they stated, 'during the current winter season, due to the non-inclusion of the Cogeneration Units in the daily dispatch system, the supply to the Ptolemaida and Kozani District Heating systems has been inadequate for long periods, because it is provided by only one of the two cogeneration units of the Kardia Steam-Electric Power Station and the PPC's Agios Dimitrios Steam-Electric Power Station in Kozani. This has resulted in the marginal supply to the cities and the overconsumption of oil by the Municipal Enterprises. For a month now, oil has been burned at a massive financial cost relative to the size of the enterprises.'
The former mayor of Kozani
Through a public intervention, the former mayor of Kozani, Lefteris Ioannidis, stressed that investments in alternative energy sources must be made to secure district heating. As he characteristically stated, 'over the last few days, and once again this year, we have all witnessed problems with the operation of district heating that were due not to a breakdown, but to the availability of the lignite units. Namely, every time a unit of the Agios Dimitrios Steam-Electric Power Station—among those supplying the Kozani district heating—goes out of operation, a shortage of thermal load is created for households, with the Municipal Enterprise for Water and Sewage of Kozani (DEYAK) trying to cover it by burning oil. The district heating in Ptolemaida is experiencing similar situations. As time passes, the issue will become increasingly acute, since the most likely scenario is that lignite units will continue to lose economic competitiveness against other power generation technologies, while the prospect of closing the lignite units by 2023–2028 makes the need to find a sustainable solution for the district heating systems more pressing than ever.'
His own proposal, as he mentioned, 'requires district heating systems to adapt to the new reality with immediate investments, which will lead to the diversification of the mix of provided thermal energy away from lignite, alongside an effort for this to be accompanied by a major energy savings programme for the public, but above all the private, building stock of the region. In my opinion, it is a given that investing in savings, which will reduce heating costs for thousands of households in the region, limit energy poverty, and substantially bolster our local economy, must be one of the main interventions—investments in the context of the transition to the post-lignite era.'