The Chvaletice Power Station

PP Chvaletice is situated in Polabi area, about twenty kilometers to the west from the town of Pardubice, close to the Praha - Ceska Trebova main railway line. The total installed power output of 800 MW consists of four 200 MW units. The power plant was constructed in the period of 1973 - 1979, in the area of former Mang-Pyrite Works, where a pyrite mining had just been concluded. Particular production units were introduced into operation within a single year - between the end of 1977 and the end of 1978. The power plant construction was associated with a completion of Elbe Waterway project, as the North Bohemia coal, being burnt in Chvaletice, was transported on the waterway from Lovosice, until 1996.

The power plant production facility operation is supervised from a pair of control rooms. A single control room is in charge of two production units. PG 655 boilers are of continuous, double-pass, granulating chamber and bottom furnace design. The boilers were manufactured by Vitkovice Steel Works. The boilers are provided with steam reheating, flue-gas preheater, rotary air heaters, two power supply units, a single turbofeeder, and two three-stage electrostatic precipitators of ash. At the nominal power output of 655 t/h, the facility achieves 88 % efficiency. Turbines are of condensing, three-stage, active design, featuring eight unregulated steam off-take outlets. They provide 200 MW nominal power output, with 3000/min nominal revolutions and 16.8 MPa/535 °C steam parameters. The units are equipped with H 6688-2-VH 235 MVA turbine generators. The stator winding is cooled by condensate, the rotary part is cooled by hydrogen.

 The generator voltage, 15.75 kV at the terminals, is transformed by 250 MVA unit transformer to 400 kV. The power output goes through two 400 kV lines to a switch plant at the town of Tynec nad Labem.  The power plant fuel is the North Bohemia power brown coal of 11.6 GJ/t calorific value, with sulphur contents up to 1.8 %. The Elbe River is the power plant water source.

A number of programs provide for compliance with environmental protection regulations:

Sulphur oxide emissions are reduced due to the desulphurization facility, technology of which is based on the wet limestone washing principle. The flue gas from electrostatic precipitators are forced by boiler chimney fans through a pair of flue gas ducting into a pair of absorbers. In the absorber, the flue gas goes through a fine-ground limestone water suspension shower, where sulphur oxides are washed out from the flue gas, with the process efficiency exceeding 95 %. It means, that out of the initial sulphur oxide contents in raw flue gas, often exceeding the value of 7 000 mg /Nm3, flue gas is cleaned down to the level of 400 mg/Nm3, as the maximum, and often below 300 mg/Nm3 . At the same time, the law sets the upper limit of 500 mg/Nm3. Dust emissions are below 100 mg/m3.

The first stage of the facility construction (desulphurization of Unit no. 3 and 4) was completed towards the end of 1997, and the second stage was completed in 1998. The Finnish-Japanese consortium of IVO International Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., and Itochu Corp. assumed the chief supplier's responsibility. A single desulphurization unit absorbs combustion products from a pair of units. As a construction feature, desulphurized combustion products go into the cooling towers. The power plant operates a pair of emission measuring stations, interconnected within the AIM (automated air pollutants monitoring) system of the CHMU institution.

Recently, the concept of electricity generation by-products (former waste) handling has changed, in principle. The ash from electrostatic filters is removed in dry state, the same as the slag from boiler furnace. Gradually, transport of such hydro-mixture products was abandoned, which makes possible their further use, particularly in the building industry. These products are provided with specific certificates. What cannot be sold separately is processed in a mix center into another certified material - stabilized mixture (a mixture of fly-ash, slag, power plant gypsum, 1- 3 % air killed lime and water). Since 1998, Power Plant Chvaletice has deposited this product, under a framework of a "Landscaping" Project, thus recultivating the landscape devastated by pyrite mining, into its initial state.

Fully certified power by-products after combustion include the following:

• slag
• ash
• power plant gypsum
• stabilized mixture

Since October 2001, Power Plant Chvaletice has held the „Environmental Management System Standard“ certificate according to ISO 14001, granted by the Det Norske Veritas company.

Power Plant Chvaletice
Installed power output	4 x  200 MW
Operation commenced in the year	1977 - 1978
Desulphurized since the year	1997