An Opportunity for Coal Thermal Power Plants Facing Phase-Out: Case of the Power Plant Vojany (Slovakia)

Michal Stričík, Lenka Kuhnová, Miroslav Variny, Petra Szaryszová, Branislav Kršák and Ľubomír Štrba ()
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Michal Stričík: Faculty of Business Economics with Seat in Košice, University of Economics in Bratislava, Tajovského 13, 041 30 Košice, Slovakia
Lenka Kuhnová: Faculty of Business Economics with Seat in Košice, University of Economics in Bratislava, Tajovského 13, 041 30 Košice, Slovakia
Miroslav Variny: Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Radlinského 9, 812 37 Bratislava, Slovakia
Petra Szaryszová: Faculty of Business Economics with Seat in Košice, University of Economics in Bratislava, Tajovského 13, 041 30 Košice, Slovakia
Branislav Kršák: Faculty of Mining, Ecology, Process Control and Geotechnologies, Technical University of Košice, Letná 9, 042 00 Košice, Slovakia
Ľubomír Štrba: Faculty of Mining, Ecology, Process Control and Geotechnologies, Technical University of Košice, Letná 9, 042 00 Košice, Slovakia

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: The study deals with the possibilities of using alternative types of fuels to produce electricity. Power Plant Vojany (PPV) is a thermal power plant (TPP) in eastern Slovakia, which is part of the company Slovenské elektrárne, a. s. (SE). PPV primarily used black coal to produce electricity, which had to be imported from abroad (the Russian Federation). This activity has become inefficient both economically and environmentally, due to the high price of CO 2 permits and the high emission factor of this type of fuel. PPV decided to co-combust biomass and refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which resulted in much better economic conditions due to their price, economic efficiency, and partly closed CO 2 cycle. The aim of the paper is to explore the possibilities related to the production of energy in the cleanest possible way and with the least possible damage to the environment in coal thermal power plants using the example of operating Power Plant Vojany located in eastern part of Slovakia and to inspire each other for the modern transformation. For the purposes of hypothesis verification, analytical methods focused on overview studies of average fuel prices, comparisons, and the balance of fuels in connection with eliminated CO 2 emissions, as well as municipal waste (MW) management in the EU and V4 countries, were used. The authors also focused on the energy recovery and combustion of MW and tracking the achieved CO 2 savings in connection with the development of fuel sources in PPV. The results point to the fact that PPV is one of the power plants that could use biomass and RDF as fuel, which confirms the economic advantages of this procedure. The results confirm that the potential of RDF production in Slovakia is sufficient to ensure the operation of PPV at planned, even higher volumes of electricity production. The transformation to cleaner operation of coal thermal power plants represents a significant contribution of this study.

Keywords: thermal power plant; refuse-derived fuel; multi-fuel mix; black coal; SDG 2030 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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