First of all, the group visited city council, where the vice-mayor Renata Lenartova presented the city and main directions of its development. Energy and environment sector managers - Maria Kattfernova and Milan Ilenin, described structure of local self-governance and the role of energy sector in it. The city has central heating, operated by municipal company Teplaren Kosice, a.s. (TEKO). Other important topic was the issues of waste treatment in the city.
Then Ukrainian group visited thermal power station, working on combined fuel (coal-gas) of the TEKO company. It was presented by Peter Mikhailov, the head of technical and sales department. This TPP has 50 years history and experienced different types of modernization and reprofiting, given different regulatory and market conditions. After 1997, ratio of coal to gas in generation processes has changed and is now 80/20. Four years ago the company has made comprehensive modernization of generating units in order to meet higher requirements to emissions. Despite sharp decrease of heat and electricity consumption after 1997, TEKO is still one of the biggest heat producer in the country, providing the heat the second largest city in Slovakia - Kosice. Moreover, it produce also electricity and ensures energy system balancing .
During the visit, Ukrainian group has received comprehensive overview of TPP and answers to all questions.
The final object became the enterprize, which takes care about water cleaning. Chief engineer explained, that it was built to provide with clean water the entire Kosice agglomeration with 250 tousand inhabitants and has all possible stages in water cleaning. Biogas from cleaning units provides options to produce 300 kWt of electricity and 400 kWt of heat, used for technological processes. Today the enterprize has very high level of energy efficiency and no options for further decrease of consumption under current technologies. The water treatment is so high, that it meets the strongest requerements of the EU. The group visited all units of the enterprize and received answers on all questions.
This was the final part of the study tour for Ukrainian local municipal and state authorities representatives, representatives of International Financial Corporation, organized by the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association in partnership with the Centre for Global Studies "Strategy XXI" under financial support of USAID.
