Poltava is the administrative centre of the Poltava Oblast in central Ukraine. The total area of the city is 103 km2 and the population is approximately 300,000 people. The total housing stock of the city consists of more than 21,000 buildings, of which the absolute majority belongs to the private sector.
About 98% of people living in multi-storey residential buildings are connected to district heating systems. The district heating of Poltava is provided by two operators: the municipal company RMHSE “PoltavaTeploEnergo” and JSC “Poltava Turbomechanical Plant”. PoltavaTeploEnergo is the largest heat supplier providing heat and domestic hot water to the major part of existing heat consumers. RMHSE “Poltavateploenergo” operates 95 boiler houses with a total installed heat capacity of 888 Gcal/h and a total district heating network length of 220 km.
Poltava I Demonstration Project – overview
The project concerned the reconstruction of the boiler house and the district heating network connected to the boiler house.
The project was interesting from a demonstration point of view as it contained a demonstration of a flexible piping system, suitable to be used in narrow areas and areas with other infrastructure in order to minimize the groundwork.
A solution with automatic gas boilers and a full conversion to delivery according to customer demand was the selected solution. Although there were no plans to construct more buildings in the neighborhood, thus it was unlikely that connection to the main district heating system would be feasible in the foreseeable future, piping network and IHS were designed, so they could be connected to a main district heating system at any moment.
Poltava I Demonstration Project – details
The project area included a boiler house supplying heat and hot water to ten, mainly residential, buildings but also a children’s hospital and a school.
Specifics of the Poltava I project included:
- Individual Heat Substations – Introduction of 11 IHSs for demand-driven heat supply to customers in all buildings connected to the boiler house.
- Network replacement – Reduce losses in the heat distribution system by replacing all district heating pipelines in the area.
- Replacement of the old boilers with new efficient condensing boilers with capacity to adapt the heat production to the heat demand.
The investment was EUR 555,904 with a simple payback time of 7.3 years. The financing plan was as follows:
- Total loan – EUR 215,579 (39%)
- Total grant – EUR 219,325 (39%)
- Total Poltava I local contribution – EUR 121,000 (22%)
The project benefited the local community by:
- Saving 2,470 MWh heat per year
- Saving 240,000 m³ gas per year
- Saving 540 tonnes CO2 per year
The project Poltava I demonstrates best practices in technical design, procurement and project implementation in a small-scale project. For the city of Poltava, the installation of IHSs was a new application of district heating technology. The IHS configuration used in this project is substantially simpler and more cost-effective than the configuration normally used in Ukraine and its installation demonstrates a complete conversion to a demand-driven system. The replacement of old district heating pipelines is done with flexible type pipelines to demonstrate efficient pipe laying in narrow areas. Customers of the district heating company, residing in the buildings with the new IHSs, are benefiting from improved supply of domestic hot water and improved indoor climate.
Current status
The project was completed in autumn 2015. All goods were procured, installed and successfully commissioned. Loan completely paid off in 2022.
Photo credit: Kvoka