Polish utility Energa remains committed to its plan to increase burn of wood pellet at a 230MW unit at the Ostroleka plant, following successful co-firing tests with coal earlier this year.
Energa plans to start regular co-firing of wood pellets with coal at the unit from 2026 in the framework of power capacity payment contracts it was awarded for the unit for 2026-31. Co-firing of wood pellets is a must for the utility in order to reduce emissions below the 550g of CO2/kWh cap — a pre-requisite to qualify for receipt of capacity payments. Such a low emissions bar cannot be achieved with only coal firing at the unit.
Ostroleka, which has a total capacity of 690MW and is currently run on coal, conducted co-firing tests earlier this year, which "went quite well", Energa said in an investors' call today. The firm is preparing for further upgrades needed to increase wood pellet burn from 2026, it added.
Energa is expected to consume about 200,000-350,000 t/yr of industrial wood pellets from 2026.
The utility burned 15,000t of biomass in the third quarter this year — mainly wood chips used at its 25MW combined heat and power plant in Elblag in northern Poland — down from 17,000t a year earlier.
Energa's biomass consumption for January-September totalled 65,000t, up from 61,000t a year earlier.
