• Home • About Fund  • Partners • Contact Info • Fund's Programs

Program supported by the Ford Foundation

News, August 2009

First published in: Vestnik Terneya Newspaper 13 August 2009 # 92

Energy Efficiency Promotes Community Development

  Plastun is the southernmost settlement of Terneisky raion, which is the largest and northernmost raion of Primorsky Krai. Because of its advantageous economic and geographical position, Plastun in the only populated center in Terneisky raion to which a power transmission line was built, and, thus, electricity here is cheap and accessible.

  The settlement is achieving rapid economic growth: its port is in operation and woodworking factories that use latest forest resources and energy saving technology are mushrooming. However, the increasing output rates are resulting in greater amounts of generated waste. To check its growth, the woodworking operations of Terneiles, an open joint-stock company, use thinnest saws, high-accuracy machines with laser setting and other hi-tech equipment. The leadership of this company has decided to diminish wood waste and shift to the use of waste-free technology. Now wood chips and sawdust are used in the heating systems of the factories and by the settlement’s boiler plant that supplies heat and hot water to residential buildings and also for producing electricity to cover the own needs of Terneiles. However, there is still much more wood waste in Plastun than can be sufficiently utilized. The boiler plant of the local hospital complex works on diesel fuel that is delivered from elsewhere. Of the nine million rubles allocated annually from the municipal budget for this boiler plant nearly six and-a-half million is spent for buying and transporting fuel.

 The idea to convert the boiler plant from the use of expensive fuel to one that is practically free was first suggested four years ago by Ludmila Rzhevskaya from the Rynda Public Initiatives Center. The cost of implementing this idea was nine million rubles - because to burn sawdust and wood chips special boilers had to be installed, the entire boiler plant had to be modernized and other improvements had to be made. This good idea could have remained on paper if not for Sergei Kurchinsky, head of the raion administration, who made it possible to realize it.

  Design and estimate documentation required for upgrading the boiler plant of the hospital complex was prepared by the administration’s staff and this played an important role during the distribution of regional investments: a total of 4,885,000 rubles was allocated from the regional budget for this project under the regional program Modernization of Utility Facilities in Primorye. This amount was not enough and, thus, it was decided to involve local NGOs in raising additional funds. Rynda Center conducted a public opinion survey and the Uragus NGO, which possessed previous successful experience in energy-efficiency projects, wrote a proposal and was awarded a grant from the Fund for Sustainable Development (FSD) for this project.  This brought another one-and-a-half million rubles from FSD under the Sustainable Development and Jobs in Rural Areas (RURALJOB) Program, which is currently implemented with financial support from the Ford Foundation. An additional amount of 970,000 rubles was allocated from the municipal budget and 600,000 rubles was spent by the utilities company that services the boiler plant. At last, the municipal administration reduced some costs and the project’s budget was completed.

  Thus, the joint effort of the head and staff of the municipal administration and local NGOs had brought together several sources of funding needed for modernizing the boiler plant. The two-year project preparation was completed in 2008, and in the spring of 2009 its implementation has begun.

  The main part of the work is being carried out by Impulse, an open-joint stock company (director – G.V.Kurchinskaya) with the participation of Plastun Settlement Utilities Complex, a municipal unitary enterprise (director – I.G.Maitakov). The operating personnel of the boiler plant were trained at the first seminar to work with the new equipment. An order for two AKM boilers burning wood waste was placed with Spetsmontazhavtomatika, a factory in the city of Tver. The chief engineer of the utilities company in Plastun went on a business trip to Tver to study the new equipment in the process of its assembly. Such boilers have rotary grates that direct hot air to sawdust drying, which allows using wood waste with high moisture content. The efficiency of the new equipment is surprising: its performance factor is 80%!

  The director of Plastun utilities complex Ivan Maitakov assured that it would be warm in the hospital during the heating season because the capacity of the new boilers was higher than that of the old ones. Besides, during the first year of operation, the old boilers will be maintained in working condition and a ten-day reserve of diesel fuel will be kept in case of an emergency.

  The equipment has already been delivered to Plastun and installed at the boiler plant and the project team is awaiting a consultant from the manufacturer who will supervise the adjustment of electronic devices. After the modernization of the boiler plant, heat for the heating and ventilation systems of the hospital in Plastun will begin to be supplied during the heating season of this year. It will work on waste generated by Terneiles enterprises.

  It is expected that nearly six million rubles will be saved as a result of the modernization of the boiler plant, which means that money invested in this project will return within one year.

Galina Maximova, project coordinator from Uragus environmental NGO
vestnik.terney.info
www.uragus.ru