News

The members of the city council of Banská Bystrica formulated the concept of thermal energy sector development more than two years ago according to which the city should gradually produce sixty per cent of heat from biomass. The aim was to diversify and stabilize the fuel base and therefore reduce, or possibly stabilize the heat distribution costs. Within the adopted concept, a construction project of a new heat source burning wood biomass in the Radvaň heat and power plant situated in the western part of Banská Bystrica was launched in June 2011. It has been distributing heat to 8400 households, schools and non-residential premises in the Radvaň and Fončorda housing estates and later also part of the Podháje city quarter since November. The construction of the boiler plant that should produce fifty per cent of the current production of the heat and power plant was planned to start six month earlier; however, it was delayed due to the property settlement concerning the plots of land affected by the structure.

The general contractor - the Association of three companies under the name "BB Radvan", of which TENZA a.s. is a member, started the construction in June 2011. We have asked Ing. Zdeněk Cienciala, Project Manager, how the company is coping with another project aimed at using renewable energy: “The heat source is designed as a system of new buildings situated in the area of an existing former heavy fuel oil catch tank of the Radvaň heat and power plant and partially on the premises of the factory railway in the northern part of the plant,” says Zdeněk Cienciala and he continues: “Heat is produced by two wood biomass burning boilers with the output of 2 x 4 MW providing 160000 GJ of heat a year. The boilers were installed including fittings such as the daily fuel storage bin, the fuel transportation system and flue gas venting and cleaning.”

The boiler plant includes an engine room taking hot water to the existing engine room of the Radvaň heat and power plant. The boiler plant has been designed to be spacious enough to house the boilers proper, the engine room, the distributing centre and the technical base for the operators. The fuel storage ground sufficient for 18 days covers an area of 1500 m² in the immediate vicinity of the boiler plant. A road weighbridge has been built to check the quantity of fuel being delivered to the storehouse.

The plant the cost of which is EUR 4.3 million should be approved for use by construction inspectors at the beginning of 2012; however, the city quarters of Banská Bystrica have been heated by it under pilot operation since November 2011. The new heat source is therefore going to contribute to improving the environment in the city and to using wood chips as fuel which is abundant in this region.