Ukraine to build thermal power plants on biofuel EIG Engineering has announced plans to build two thermal power

plants based on s olid biomass fuel with a total capacity of 40 MW by the end of 2016. The plants will be located in Dubrovitsya, Rivne region and in Gorodnia, Chernih iv region.The approximate amount of investment in the two projects is 66 million Euro. Experts note that the plan is to use for fuel wood chips to be purchased at stat e-owned forest farms located within a 150 km radius from the new facilities. Acc ording to preliminary estimates, the purchases of scrap timber for the TPP will amount to 30-40 million UAH annually. Part of the electricity produced by the new thermal power plants will be sold to the united energy system under the "green" tariff. Partially it will be distrib uted to the areas of operation of the new power plants.According to industry exp erts, it will allow to improve the quality of power supply to the local populati on and provide an uninterrupted power supply to the regions. Introduction of thermal power plants on biofuel will create about 200 new jobs.Al so, the purchase of the local non-merchantable timber will significantly increas e tax revenues to local budgets and escalate trade in the region. EIG Engineering is currently completing a similar project at Ivankov, Kyiv regio n.The company is preparing to commission Phase 1 of wood-fired Ivankov TPP (capac ity 6 MW).After Phase 2 is completed, the capacity of the plant will increase to 18 MW. TheIvankov TPP was designed according to the design of a plant in Shangha i (China) plant.Boilers have been designed to order in the US, and the turbines h ave been made in India. The area of the new plant is 7 hectares, 70% of the territory are to be used for storage of raw materials, e.g. wood chips, straw, leaves, corn and sunflower sh ells. Analysts say that in the 2013-2014the domestic market demand for solid biofuels w ill double, up to 570,000 tons, or from 20% to 40% of the total Ukrainian indust rial output.Production forecast for 2013 is 1.45 million tons, and in 2014 - 1.5 million tons. Industry experts state that several Ukrainian biofuel producers have redirected their supply to domestic market and start developing own line of thermal generat ion following the example of the EU and Poland, in particular. And the "green" t ariff for electricity produced from biomass (12.39 Euro cents per 1 kW/h) helps the country develop a segment of power generation from biomass. As of August 20, 2013, the total installed capacity of boiler houses on biofuel in Ukraine was 84 MW, up 31% in January through August this year, the total biom ass power generation capacity being 7 MW (up 20%). Government analysts say that by the end of 2013 total capacity of biofuel boiler s will be up 20%, and at power plants up 80%. Also, oil extraction plants, brick and cement manufacturers have been actively s ubstituting natural gas burning technologies with alternative fuels, in particul ar, with crushed sunflower shells and wood chips.In the first six months of 2013, due to using biofuel, gas consumption at those enterprises was down by 110 mill ion cubic meters. Offset:The approximate amount of investment in the two biomass power plant projec ts amounts to EUR 66 million.