Green heat

Heating producer Praterm plans to invest between zł.50-100 million in renewable energy in the years 2007-2013. "By 2020 Poland will have to produce 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources, right now it is only 4.5 percent," the president of Praterm, Edward Kowalewski, said. The company will invest the funds in acquisitions or in leasing land where energy crops such as miscanthus - a variety of grass - will be grown.

"We want to have even up to 5,000 hectares of land at our disposal [leased or bought]," Kowalewski said. He added that Praterm plans to get energy crops from a further 5,000-10,000 ha through contracts with farmers. All in all, the firm wants to harvest 100,000 tonnes of straw from its own fields and a further 300,000 tonnes from the contracted ones. "This would be equal to around 250,000 tonnes of coal," Kowalewski explained.

Praterm has already taken its first steps towards new territories in the green energy business. It has acquired a 92-percent stake in Bioenergia, a company from the bio-energy sector. According to Praterm's president, Bioenergia's experience in growing and utilizing energy crops was what made the firm attractive. The cost of the transaction amounted to zł.3 million.

Praterm achieved a revenue of zł.107.9 million after H1 of 2007, in comparison to zł.90.9 million in H1 2006. Its profit after two quarters of this year reached zł.29.3 million, well over the zł.13.7 million earned in H1 of 2006. This means that Praterm has completed between 56-58 percent of its zł.185-190-million revenue prognosis for 2007.