Opatovice power plant aims to stop using lignite entirely by the end of 2030 in Czechia

Opatovice power plant in the Pardubice region aims to stop using lignite as fuel entirely by the end of 2030. It is to be replaced by natural gas, biomass and municipal waste incineration, and possibly also by photovoltaic panels. Decarbonisation will be divided into several phases that will overlap in time, with coal-fired boilers being gradually shut down, the Czech News Agency (CTK) learned from the project notice submitted for the screening procedure EIA.

The power plant expects to have a total installed thermal capacity of at least 450 megawatts (MW) after moving away from coal. The facility, which generates electricity and heat in cogeneration, currently has a total thermal capacity of 698 MW.

After 2030, the power plant is expected to have four combined-cycle gas-fired units, a waste-to-energy facility, a multifuel boiler or biomass unit, and an electrode boiler. Later, the plans include a further biomass unit, potentially a multifuel boiler for burning biomass, or the construction of another incinerator line.

The power plant has already received a favourable opinion on its plan to build a municipal waste incinerator with a capacity of 150.000 tonnes per year, equivalent to 480 tonnes per day. The heat generated would be distributed through the power plant’s district heating system, which supplies Pardubice, Hradec Králové, Chrudim and other towns and villages. The plan envisages annual heat production of 615 terajoules (TJ), of which 17 TJ would be used by the facility itself, and electricity production of 78,5 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per year. The facility’s own electricity consumption would be 15,7 GWh.

Residents of neighbouring Opatovice nad Labem rejected the construction of the incinerator in a referendum in 2006. The power plant therefore moved the project to another part of the site, in the cadastral area of Čeperka. Residents there also voted against the plan in a referendum in September 2022. The municipality therefore wants to declare a construction moratorium in the affected part of its cadastral area and is preparing an amendment to its land-use plan to prevent the project, as well as a new municipal land-use plan with the same effect.

Opatovice power plant was completed in 1960. It supplies heat to about 63.000 households and many other industrial, commercial and public-sector customers. The district heating network consists of approximately 319 kilometres of heat pipelines, supplying Hradec Králové, Pardubice, Chrudim, Rybitví, Lázně Bohdaneč, Čeperka, Opatovice nad Labem and Pohřebačka. It is owned by Energetický a průmyslový holding, controlled by billionaire Daniel Křetínský, through its subsidiary EP Energy.