Hot-water hopes

The city of Uniejów has announced plans to build the first hybrid geothermal heat and power plant in the country, second in the world after Alaska.

The plant will produce electrical power using geothermal water, an ecological power source. Researchers estimate that the potential energy that can be obtained from geothermal waters in Poland could easily amount to the equivalent of 24,724 tonnes of oil - over three times the annual energy needs of the entire country. Currently, most electricity in Poland is produced using coal-fired and cogeneration power.

The Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ) estimates that the number of geothermal power stations in Poland will increase and contribute more significantly to Poland's supply of renewable energy.

The Łódź region is an exceptional source of geothermal water reserves. The Geotermia Uniejów plant has been providing ecologically- derived heat to close to fifty percent of the city's buildings since 2001. Now the company is cooperating with a team of scientists from the Technical University of Łódź and the Integrated Program for Regional Development (IPRD) to create an advanced system that uses geothermal water and biomass to generate electricity and an increased capacity for heat energy production. The city is considering the expansion of existing cultivated willow fields in Łódź, which could provide the necessary biomass to fuel the generation of power.

Professor Ryszard Chodkiewicz of the Technical University of Łódź says, "The most promising sources are located near the Bełchatów part of the region, where geothermal waters in the Mesozoic basin (at temperatures up to 170ºC) can achieve from 38.7 million to over 1,015 million tonnes of oil equivalent. We should start to think seriously about electricity generation that does not involve coal, particularly as many traditional power plants are approaching maturity."

The new Uniejów geothermal power plant is expected to be operational by 2010.