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Budimex completing construction of the Zabrze heat and power plant

News date: September 28, 2018
Budimex completing construction of the Zabrze heat and power plant

The last week of September saw the official opening of one of the largest energy investments in recent years in Poland. The Zabrze heat and power plant is the first such modern facility managed by Fortum in Europe. It has the capability of using alternative fuel generated from waste, thanks to which it is environmentally friendly. The commissioning and final works are currently underway at the facility. Budimex was the general contractor, alongside other trade contractors.

 

Budimex completed the construction within 29 months, in accordance with the provisions of the contract. Additional works ordered by the investor during the contract are still in progress and will be completed by the end of this year. The value of the construction project is over PLN 51 million. Fortum Zabrze heat and power plant will be multi-fuel, i.e. it will be capable of using up to three different types of fuel. The possibility of using RDF coal, which is fuel from waste that cannot be re-used, is especially important in this respect. Thanks to the above, the facility will operate in a closed circulation system and use materials that would normally go into a landfill, but instead will be used to generate heat and electricity. “This is the first heat and power plant in Poland capable of using this alternative fuel. At Budimex we consider ourselves a modern construction company, and the ideals of environmental protection have always been very dear to us. It is therefore a particular pleasure being able to build such an ecologically friendly facility,” says Dariusz Blocher, President of the Budimex SA Management Board.

 

A wide range of Budimex operations

 

The responsibilities of Budimex, as the general contractor, included the construction of the complex of main buildings, such as the boiler station and boiler silos, engine room, main staircase and electrical building with control room. In addition, the company implemented the power input, exhaust cleaning and ash removal system facilities. “It was a challenge to create structures requiring over 12,000 m3 of concrete and 1,200 tons or more of reinforcing steel, and also the laying of the foundations for a turbine and a 66 m high communication pylon. Thanks to the well organised work and the experience of our employees, this was done in a record time of 12 weeks,” says Dariusz Blocher. The scope of the company's construction activities also included works on the roof, which involved trapezoidal sheet metal on a steel construction, covered with a torch-on membrane. In total, the total investment executed by Budimex has a cubic capacity of over 171 thousand m3 and a surface area of nearly 12 thousand m2.

 

Experts estimate that the applied technology will allow a more than 11-fold reduction in the emission of harmful dust, and over a 7-fold reduction in the emission of sulphur dioxide. The new heat and power plant will replace the older installations operated in Zabrze and Bytom, which have reached the end of their working lives. The output of the new installation is 225 MW from the fuel input (heat energy: 145 MW, electrical energy: 75 MW). The expected annual production of heat is 730 GWh, and electric power is 550 GWh.