District heating power plant Mellach
| District heating power plant Mellach | |||
|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) |
|||
| location | |||
|
|||
| Coordinates | 46 ° 54 '39 " N , 15 ° 29' 19" E | ||
| country |
 Austria
|
||
| place | Mellach | ||
| Waters | Mur | ||
| Data | |||
| Type | Thermal power plant | ||
| Primary energy | Fossil energy | ||
| fuel | Hard coal , natural gas | ||
| power | 225 MW electric
230 MW thermal as district heating |
||
| owner | VERBUND Thermal Power GmbH & Co KG | ||
| operator | VERBUND Thermal Power GmbH & Co KG | ||
| Project start | 1983 | ||
| Start of operations | 1986 | ||
| Shutdown | |||
| turbine | Extraction condensing turbine | ||
| Chimney height | 175 m | ||
| Energy fed in since commissioning | electrical 30,500 GWh
thermal 20,000 GWh |
||
| Website | https://www.verbund.com/de-at/ueber-verbund/kraftwerke/unsere-kraftwerke/mellach-fernheizkraftwerk | ||
The Mellach district heating power plant was built between 1983 and 1986 and was the last coal-fired power plant in Austria after the Dürnrohr power plant stopped generating electricity from coal in August 2019 . The city of Graz was supplied with district heating in winter through an approx. 15 km long district heating pipe. The power plant is operated by VERBUND Thermal Power GmbH & Co KG . It is located in the immediate vicinity of the Mellach gas and steam power plant, which went into operation in 2011 .
Operation with coal
By using combined heat and power , the power plant, which was in operation for most of the heating season from September to May, achieved an efficiency of up to 68%. A full load efficiency of around 40% was achieved with pure electricity production. The coal-fired power plant provided up to 225 MW of electrical power and 230 MW of district heating. The power plant had a coal requirement, depending on capacity utilization and coal quality, of around 400,000 t per year. When firing design coal, around 80 t / h were consumed at full load.
The power plant is cooled using river water from the Mur in structural cooperation with the Mellach run-of-river power plant, which was built at the same time . After it has flowed through the condenser , up to 150 MW are fed into the Weißenegger Mühlkanal, the rest is pumped back into the Mur.
The operator's plans envisaged the end of coal burning at the site at the end of the 2020 heating season. Before the end of the actual heating season, the system was shut down for the last time on March 31, 2020 at 11:03 p.m. from operation with coal. This ended coal-fired power generation in Austria. Around 80 percent of the total district heating required in Graz - a total of more than 30 billion kWh of electrical energy and 20 billion kWh of district heating - had been produced by March 2020, according to the operator.
Network support with natural gas
The block will be available for power grid support until September 2021. If it turns out to be economical, the contract can be extended for a further 3 years. If the block is called up, the system can be started up again within several hours. For this purpose, the boiler is fired with natural gas via the existing gas burner, which means that a maximum electrical output of 165 MW net can be achieved. With appropriate economic efficiency, the performance can be increased through extensive conversion measures up to the nominal output.
Alternative heat sources have been developed for the city of Graz since around 2015: heat extraction from the electrical steel rolling mill in Marienhütte (Graz) and the Sappi paper mill in Gratkorn . Holding Graz installed 3800 m 2 solar heat collectors at the waterworks in Andritz, 2500 m 2 at the Puchstrasse district heating plant and uses the gas from the Neufeldweg landfill.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The VERBUND district heating power station in Mellach. In: verbund.com. Retrieved May 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Verbund - Information sheet on the Mellach district heating power station. (PDF; 808 kB) In: verbund.com . July 20, 2016, accessed February 17, 2020.
- ↑ Verbund will shut down the Mellach coal-fired power plant by 2019. In: tt.com. March 15, 2017. Retrieved May 29, 2019 .
- ^ Mellach power plant: innovation instead of coal. In: orf.at . February 17, 2020, accessed February 17, 2020.
- ↑ Off for Austria's last coal-fired power station. In: orf.at . April 17, 2020, accessed April 17, 2020.
- ↑ District heating> Heating supply> Generation systems and feed points in the district heating supply network energie-graz.at, accessed April 17, 2020.