Assessment of biomass for energy purposes for Jawor county

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Usefull energy and energy services in Jawor

3. Biomass resources available in Lower Silesia region

4. Biomass resources available in Jawor county

5. Technologies suitable to supply energy services in terms of biomass availability

6. Conclusions and comments

7. References

8. Appendix

1. Introduction

1.1 Administrative division of Poland

The administrative division of Poland since 1999 has been based on three levels of subdivision. The territory of Poland is divided into voivodeships (regions); these are further divided into powiats (counties), and these in turn are divided into gminas (communes or municipalities). Major cities normally have the status of both gmina and powiat. Poland currently has 16 voivodeships, 379 powiats (including 65 cities with powiat status), and 2 478 gminas.

1.2 Jawor

Aim of this essay is to estimate availability of biomass for energy purposes in my hometown Jawor. Jawor is a small Town inhabited by 24 576 of citizens which is 8 724 households [6]. Jawor is located in south-western part of Poland in region called Dolny Śląsk (eng. Lower Silesia) - Jawor doesn’t have powiat status itself but is a capital of Jawor county consisting of 6 communes. Jawor itself has a status of municipality (fig 1.1). County in total is inhabited approximately with 53 000 people.

Figure 1.1 Map of Lower Silesia, with location of Jawor county and all communes belonging to the county

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1.3 Methodology

Some resources are estimated only in terms of the county, other are estimated in terms of the region. Division has been made depending on biomass type, it’s suitability for transport and local transport conditions. The distance from furthest place in region to Jawor does not exceed 150 km and in average could be considered less than 100 km. The distance from furthest place in county to Jawor does not exceed 25 km and in average could be considered 10 km.

2. Usefull energy and energy services in Jawor

2.1 General situation

Jawor is a typical example of a small town in south-western Poland. All households as well as all public facilities like schools, hospital etc. along with all the enterprises within the city area are connected to electricity grid. District heating covers more than half of the town. Most of the town is connected to national natural gas distribution system.

An assumption is made that only energy for households public facilities and enterprises is covered in this assessment, energy for transport is neglected. In Poland summer is not extremely hot, temperatures exceeding 30 ℃ happen sometimes but not often. In Jawor there are no big companies with big office buildings, there are also no big food industry facilities and no big warehouses dealing storing food that could possibly consume cooling. Climate cooling because of investment cost is not very popular, so electricity and natural gas for climate cooling is assumed to be 0.

2.2 Electricity

According to [9] mean usage of electricity by households in Poland is 1624 kWh/year. For 8 724 households it brings little bit less than 14,2 GWh/year of electricity for Jawor. As mentioned before it’s assumed that electricity usage for climate cooling as 0. Prices of electricity in Poland are, comparing to salaries, relatively high so electric heating is not very popular. Most of the household electricity in typical polish small town household is consumed by household appliances such us fridges, washing machines etc. as well as home electronics f. ex. TV. Electric stoves are quite common but usually when household is connected to natural gas system gas stove is used for cooking. Usually people have both gas stove and gas oven, but sometimes “hybrids” such as gas stove and electric oven happen (my home might be an example).

It is assumed that:

- electricity to produce hot tap water 10 % of the total electricity QEL 1
- electricity for comfort/climate cooling 0 % of the total electricity QEL 2
- electricity for comfort/climate heating 5 % of the total electricity QEL 3
- electricity for cooking 5 % of the total electricity QEL 4
- electricity for household appliances, electronics and light 80 % of the total electricity QEL 5

2.3 Natural gas

In Jawor most of the households and small entrepreneurs are connected to natural gas network system. There are also few big industrial users Kuźnia Jawor S.A., Korpo S.A. and IS Polska S.A. There is no data about their natural gas usage available. Kuźnia Jawor S.A. is very close to bankruptcy because of recent economical crisis and it would be very difficult to estimate their natural gas usage because it depends on production rate.

Table 2.1 - Natural gas usage in Jawor[6]

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High amounts of natural are used for heating in households not connected to district heating there are high fluctuations between different years in terms of yearly gas usage depending on temperatures during late autumn and winter. To estimate probable natural gas demand i used Gaussian distribution. I used as a “safe value” and in that case, in my opinion, it’s highly unlikely that yearly demand will be higher in practice. Natural gas is also used to produce hot tap water in some household that are supplied with heat for comfort heating purposes by district heating (my home might be an example).

It is assumed that:

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2.4 Heating

District heating is supplied with heat by two heating plants. First is equipped with four grate boilers: 2 x WR5 and 2 x WR10. Second is equipped with four boilers: 2 x WR5 and 2x WR2.5. These types of boilers produce only hot water, not steam therefore plant produces only heat. Coal is used as a fuel.

Nominal power of boilers:

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Both heating plants are “oversized”. They were built during communism times ca. 30 years ago. Those days system pipelines were not as good insulated. Insulation of buildings was not as good as it is nowadays. Those days there were also plans to build more blocks of flats in Jawor and to expand the city.

Nowadays both plants are connected with a big pipeline and they work alternately. Bigger plant works in so called “winter mode” - during heating season supplies heat used for district heating and hot tap water in households and public facilities. It also supplies heat for a swimming pool. When heating season is over smaller starts operation in so called “summer mode” and supplies heating for hot tap water and swimming pool (swimming pool facility uses less heat in warmer periods of year). Sometimes it may also deliver heat for households and public facilities, if the outside temperature gets too low during early autumn or late spring, but it does not happen often and does not require as much heat as it is during winter time. In those parts of the city that are not connected to the district heating there are few boilers run by administrators of the objects that they deliver heat into, and these are: local housing co-operatives, town hospital, few of the town schools and kindergartens and other public facilities. Some households especially freestanding houses have their own source of heat. Fuel varies for all those cases but usually coal and natural gas seems to be dominant.

Table 2.2 - Heat production in Jawor county [6]

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Table 2.3 - Example data showing heat production in bigger heat plant during “winter mode”

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Data about the heating in GUS database (Tab2.2) [6] exist only for county as a whole and only for years 1999 - 2000 (census) data relates only to households and does not include industrial users, swimming pool and other public facilities. Data from district heating (Tab 2.3) do not give full picture since not all individual users are connected into. Data in Tab 2.2 are divided as own sources, which means that heat consumer produced the heat on his own, and other sources which mean that consumer is not the owner of the source which not necessarily mean that consumer was connected to district heating. Supply “from other sources” does not necessarily mean that customer was connected to the district heating - it might also mean that source belongs to local housing co-operative that household is a part of.

It is estimated to be: 380 000 GJ/year which is 105,5 GWh/year - that may be considered as overestimation but since supply is mandatory to meet the demands that overestimation seems to be justified. Nobody wants to be in a situation that he cannot receive energy service he needs.

My assumption is:

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2.5 Energy service demand

Table 2.4 - Energy service demand – summary

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In Tab 2.4 there are summarised different kinds of energy services. Interesting thing is that some of these services we could be delivered using the same type of useful energy. These types are grouped in Tab 2.5. [illustration not visible in this excerpt] is low temperature heat and [illustration not visible in this excerpt]is high temperature heat (as high as usual stove/oven temperature).

Table 2.5 - Useful energy demand – summary

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