Waste from Ukrainian thermal power plants is traditionally viewed more from an environmental perspective. Hundreds of millions of tons of ash and slag materials have accumulated in the country, and the waste dumps beneath them occupy thousands of hectares of useful land. Meanwhile, their recycling could very well become a separate business, with waste being positioned as a byproduct of thermal generation.
The Kurakhovskaya Thermal Power Plant, controlled by the energy holding DTEK, burns approximately 4 million tons of coal annually when operating with five to six units, generating approximately 6 billion kWh of electricity. Significant quantities of waste are also generated. 3,700-4,000 tons of bottom ash (BBO) are produced daily, or approximately 1 million tons annually, according to Anatoly Borichevsky, the plant's director, during a press tour.
To store this waste, Kurakhovo uses two ash dumps with a combined area of over 270 hectares. The plant's manager says they currently hold over 60 million tons of waste. For all 10 thermal power plants owned by the energy holding, the volumes are in the hundreds of millions of tons. The steady increase is also impressive. Of the 8 million tons of waste generated annually at the country's thermal power plants, approximately 90% is stored in the plants' ash dumps.
It's not as if DTEK hasn't considered waste management. The Kurakhovskaya Thermal Power Plant, for example, sells 15 tons of dry ash annually. "Although they could sell up to 100 tons of fly ash annually if there were demand," says A. Borichevsky. Meanwhile, Tatyana Zavgorodnyaya, manager of DTEK's Environmental Safety Department, notes that in some cases, the company sells fly ash not so much for profit as for environmental reasons. "We sell some types of fly ash for 5 UAH per ton," she asserts.
Profit can, however, also be made in this area. A year ago, UMG (like DTEK, a part of the SCM Group) spun off its business for processing and selling ash and slag waste generated by all the energy holding's thermal power plants. Here, ash and slag waste was reclassified as a byproduct of thermal power plants.
"Ash and slag materials can be used in the ceramic, construction, cement, chemical, and oil and gas industries," explains UMG's press service. Ash and slag materials are also used in road construction. In the case of wet and dry ash, the main consumers are cement and concrete manufacturers. Slag is used as a raw material for the production of abrasives used in cleaning the bottoms of marine vessels.
Cement plants account for approximately 49% of UMG's ash and slag product consumers, while concrete producers account for 23%. Last year, the company increased its ash and slag sales by 39%, reaching nearly 350 tons, exporting 31,5 tons. According to Andrey Garanin, COO of the company's ash and slag business, sales will increase significantly in 2016. In the first half of the year, wet ash sales, for example, increased 14-fold compared to the same period in 2015.
Another type of coal ash, microspheres, is considered by the company to be one of its most marketable products. This ash and slag is formed as a result of high-temperature coal combustion in power plants. Its applications are quite wide, from the manufacture of refractories to plugging oil and gas wells.
UMG invested $1,2 million in the construction of the Druzhkovka microsphere processing plant. Its design capacity is approximately 5 tons per year; at current capacity, the plant produces 2 tons per year from Ukrainian raw materials, with an additional 700 tons from imported Kazakhstani raw materials. This product is quite expensive, fetching between $600 and $1000 per ton in sales. Its customers are primarily abroad.
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Approximately 90% of microspheres are exported to the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Notably, the crisis in the oil industry, caused by low oil prices, has also impacted UMG's microspheres business. Oil producers reduced investment in geological exploration, demand for microspheres declined, and in the first five months of this year, production at Druzhkovka fell by 9% year-on-year.
The company, however, asserts that the market for this product will improve in the second half of the year. They are also actively pursuing another export market – slag (a mineral residue from solid fuel combustion). This year, UMG signed a contract with the Belgian company Sibelco for the supply of 45 tons of slag from Ukrainian thermal power plants. "Working with companies like Sibelco allows us to use ash and slag materials for commercial purposes," the Ukrainian company previously commented on the deal.
UMG's ash and slag business generated approximately $5 million in revenue last year. This is clearly insignificant compared to the company's consolidated revenue for 2015 – $163 million. Nevertheless, A. Garanin sees great potential for the Ukrainian ash and slag business. He cites Poland as an example, where they managed to recycle all of their thermal power plant ash dumps in 15 years. However, to replicate this success, measures are needed, primarily legislative ones, to encourage cement and concrete workers to purchase ash and slag, adds T. Zavgorodnyaya. "For now, they prefer to consume traditional raw materials," admits the DTEK representative.
Author: Evgeny Kovalchuk
Based on: Minprom.ua
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