Planou na Tachovsku heats with straw and wood chip boilers

Planá (Tachovsko) - Half of the five-thousand-strong Planá is heated by two new straw and wood chip boilers. The city has decommissioned old coal dust boilers that heated 740 apartments in two housing estates. An investment of 45 million crowns, subsidized three-quarters by the EU and one-tenth by the State Environmental Fund, will significantly improve living conditions in Planá. The price of heat will remain the same, said the mayor of the city, Karel Vrzala, to ČTK.
    "Emissions have disappeared, the efficiency of the boilers has increased, and by supplying straw and chips, we will employ dozens of people and the money will stay in the region," he added. Additionally, the city will not be constrained by gas prices and issues with gas pipelines. Furthermore, they did not invest a single crown into the project. The remaining approximately eight million crowns were provided by the Brno company Tenza, which has thus prepaid the rent of the boiler room for ten years. It will operate and provide service for it. Tenza, which was the supplier of both boilers with a total capacity of 3.6 MW, will also ensure its own ecological fuel. According to Vrzala, 15 companies were interested in the construction and operation of the boiler room.
    In the case where the annual consumption from the boiler will be at least 26,000 GJ per year, which is 4,000 GJ less than what the housing estate consumed from coal-fired boilers, Tenza guarantees the same price of 350 crowns per gigajoule, which is slightly below the average in the Plzeň region. Additionally, they will add inflation each year. "It will only depend on whether the price of straw and chips, which is becoming an increasingly sought-after commodity and is rising, increases significantly," said Radoslav Matuška from Tenza. The company now has four fuel suppliers within a radius of 15 kilometers.
    Although gas boilers would be cheaper and simpler, according to Vrzala, the city would not receive any subsidies and the price for heat would significantly increase. In the neighboring Mariánské Lázně, residents pay 540 CZK/GJ, he added. If the town hall had chosen new coal boilers, the price of heat would be the same as now, but it would also increase with the introduction of a coal tax. Matuška confirmed that the prices of chip and straw boilers are multiple times higher than those for gas and coal. Tenza provided the straw boiler, and the chip boiler is from TTS Třebíč.
    The main straw boiler will burn 1,200 to 1,400 tons of grain waste per year, according to the mayor from 500 ha of fields. The second one needs 2,000 to 4,500 tons of bark and chips. There will also be a backup gas boiler with a capacity of 1.9 MW in the boiler room.
    Tenza, which is involved in projects and constructions in energy, has built similar boiler rooms in Třebíč, Karlova near Znojmo, Zlaté Hory in Jesenicko, and the Olomouc zoo. In Planá, it will operate and repair at least the remaining five small gas boilers in the city for ten years as well.