Simulation of an alternative energy system for district heating company in the light of changes in regulations of the emission of harmful substances into the atmosphere.

Abstract

At the present time Poland is going through a lot of changes, also from the energy generation and energy law point of view. In the nearest future the polish energy industry, according to the EU 2020 Climate and Energy Package, will have to significantly modernize most of its power plants. Dynamically changing situation results in higher demand for different, both energy and economy, analyses helping with setting the frames for future functioning of power engineering companies.One of the polish power companies, PEC Legionowo, is reshaping its infrastructure to meet the new requirements and from this particular company authors are using data for test case. The first conceptual work related to the development of the PEC Legionowo energy system is underway in terms of increasing its energy efficiency and reducing harmful exhaust emissions. Due to the need of significantly reducing exhaust emissions by 2022, PEC Legionowo is seriously considering the reduction of the heat generative power from coal-fired boilers. Among others the resulting energy gap is planned to be covered by installing high-efficiency combined heat and power (CHP) systems.The article analyzes and verifies the model of an existing CHP plant and checks the modernization possibilities of the existing installation in terms of reducing the emission of harmful gases to the atmosphere. The new installation of gas boilers designed to replace coal-fired boilers is checked to meet the new emission requirements, while maintaining the demand for heat and electricity.For the modelling a test case the combined techno-economic optimization and analysis software energyPRO is used. The software optimizes the operation of the modelled system in accordance to all input conditions such as generation and economic data obtained from a functioning heat and power plant in polish industry.The results show the quantitative and economic difference related to the introduced changes in the heat and power plant system. The analysis also focuses on the size of the investment outlay and the return time of the project.