Czeczott power station
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Czeczott power station is a proposed 900 to 1,000-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station in Wola, Gmina Miedźna, Pszczyna county, Śląskie (Silesia), Poland.
Contents
Location
The map below shows Pszczyna county, the approximate location where the plant would be built.
Background on Plant
The planned Czeczott coal power plant in Poland is a 900-1000MW hard-coal-fired power project located in the Wola village in Silesia (Slaskie Voivodship), on the area of a former coal mine, the Czeczott coal mine. The project, worth 1.5 billion euro ($1.94 billion), is planned by Kompania Weglowa S.A., the largest coal mining company in Poland and the EU. The power plant is due to be completed by 2019.
A new power plant was originally proposed by RWE and Kompania Weglowa, the Piast Ruch Power Station, however in 2010 RWE announced its resignation from the project.
At the end of June 2013, Kompania Weglowa announced that three companies are interested in becoming a partner in the investment: Mitsui & Co., Ltd; Samsung C & T Corporation and Sepco Elektric Power Construction Corporation.[1]
In July 2014, KW signed a deal with Japanese company Mitsui on joint development of the project. The agreement provides for three phases. In the first phase, by the first quarter of 2015, the parties will negotiate the long-term contract for coal at 3 million tonnes per year, negotiate the purchase price for electricity, negotiate the turnkey construction contract with Mitsubishi Hitachi System, and negotiate conditions for obtaining financing. In the second phase, by the end of 2015, the parties will sign contracts to establish the special purpose vehicle. In the third phase construction would begin in 2016. The agreement was signed by the Ministry of Economy.[2]
In September 2014 the Municipal Council of Goczalkowice, Spa adopted a resolution calling for the phasing out of the coal plant investment. In October 2014 the local court revoked the environmental permit for the plant, drawing upon comments from NGOs on the health impacts of air pollution. As of March 2015, the project has been put on hold.[3]
The letter of intent between Kompania Weglowa (KW) and Mitsui regarding construction of Czeczott expired on the 31st of March 2016. A decision has not been made yet whether the new Kompania Weglowa (Polska Grupa Gornicza – PGG), which is meant to be created in mid-2016, will take over and forward the project.[4]
Opposition
In July 2014, 17 environmental and health NGOs signed a joint letter to Mitsui urging the company to reconsider its involvement in the Czeczott project. The letter included the following passages:[5]
- It will exacerbate the already threatening levels of air pollution in two highly populated Polish regions, Silesia and Malopolska Provinces. Level of PM10 (larger dust particles) which, according to the Ambient Air Quality and Cleaner Air for Europe (CAFE) Directive (2008/50/EC), cannot exceed 50 milligrams/m³ more than 35 times a year, is breached in these two regions with much higher frequencies. What is more, in a report issued in October 2013 by European Environment Agency, six Polish cities located in southern Poland were ranked among top 10 most polluted cities in the EU. EU limits are exceeded on average on one out of three days in these cities. Five of them (Katowice, Sosnowiec, Krakow, Zabrze and Gliwice) lie within 30-70 km radius from the location of the proposed plant. According to modeling done in European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) by Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) 1 air pollution impact of Czeczott power plant can reach up to 300 km, thus all the aforementioned towns, together with vast areas of southern Poland, will be endangered by further deterioration of air quality.
- Local communities are already experiencing adverse social impacts of poor air quality, such as loss of amenity, displacement and loss of social capital, as well as increased risks of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, such as asthma, COPD, lung cancer, strokes or heart failure. According to estimates by HEAL, external health costs resulting from operation of Czeczott power plant will reach at least 30 million euros per year (e.g., costs of hospital admissions, medication use and productivity losses).
- What is more, Mitsui & Co. should be aware of flaws and shortcomings of the Czeczott’s environmental impact assessment (EIA), which were pointed out by HEAL in its comments handed over in public consultations process. Firstly, the model of atmospheric dispersion of air pollution used in EIA is outdated. It dates from the 1960s and results in numerous irregularities in calculations, such as disregarding secondary emission data and decrease the air pollution range to a couple of kilometers rather than the true impact range of few hundreds kilometers. It can be assumed that the calculations the environmental impact assessment was based on were imprecise, or even incorrect. Secondly, the analysis of possible health impacts (described together with tangible goods) of the power plant was inadequate – enough to point out that these impacts were addressed only on a half page of the 257-page assessment. Given these facts, we believe that a comprehensive health impact assessment should be carried out, including a recalculation of air pollution dispersion using currently used models that includes also secondary emissions data.
- Further flaws of the EIA were raised by a Polish environmental NGO, Towarzystwo na rzecz Ziemi (TnZ -Society for the Earth). It claims i.a. that the investment may not be granted an IPPC permit, as it does not meet the requirements imposed by the Polish law. According to Polish Environmental Protection Act, as air in the location of the power plant is heavily polluted, in order for a relevant permit to be granted to Czeczott, the investor should diminish the quantity of PM10 emissions there by 30% more than he plans to emit (that is by 130% of the Czeczott’s planned PM10 emissions). However, so far the planned cuts which will result from an accompanying closure of a heat plant (Zaklad Cieplowniczy Nr 2 Czeczott) can be equivalent to between 17 to 38% of the Czeczott’s future emissions. Investor has not foreseen to reduce emissions by any other means. Moreover, as underlined by TnZ, investor has not fulfilled its legal obligations to assess properly the possible impact of the investment on NATURA 2000 areas.
Project Details
- Sponsor: Kompania Weglowa S.A.
- Parent company:
- Developer:
- Location: Wola, Gmina Miedźna, Pszczyna county, Śląskie (Silesia), Poland
- Coordinates: 49.966667, 18.95 (approximate)
- Status: Cancelled (environmental permit revoked and no stated plans to continue the project)
- Capacity: 900 - 1000 MW
- Type:
- Start date:
- Coal Type:
- Coal Source:
- Source of financing:
Resources and articles
References
- ↑ "Czeczott coal power plant," Banktrack, updated Mar 20, 2014.
- ↑ "Band of Mitsui build Czeczott," Kompania Weglowa press release, July 23, 2014
- ↑ "Poland: future Czeczott coal plant on hold," HEAL, Apr 9, 2015
- ↑ "Energetyka: Elektrownia Czeczott - projekt w zawieszeniu," nettg, Apr 2, 2016
- ↑ Open letter to from 17 environmental and health groups to Masami Iijima, Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Office, Mitsui & Co. Ltd., 9 June 2014
Related SourceWatch Articles
External Resources
- Dodgy Deal: Czeczott coal power plant, BankTrack, updated July 15, 2014
