An interview with Mr. Dariusz Prostański, D.Sc. Eng. Prof. at KOMAG, Director of KOMAG Institute of Mining Technology
The Polish Energy Sector turns more and more into the green direction. The circum-mining subjects must register in this trend. What is the reaction of KOMAG to these changes?
I have never perceived KOMAG as a “circum-mining subject”, we have been an integral part of the mining sector for many years. To tell you more, to a big extent we have decided about an innovativeness of this branch of industry for more than 70 years and we want to be and I believe that we will be – because we have full competences for that – an active participant of the transformation under development. I can say so, because you are in the Institute which, to a big extent, its scientific-and-research transformation has already finished – in my opinion with a big success, and the strategy till the year 2050, which is being prepared by me at present and which I would announce in June, will precisely show our ambitions and competences in the transformation field of the energy sector as well as of the entire Silesia.
Very ambitious. Aren’t you concerned about presenting such visions in such a difficult moment for the entire branch?
It is my pleasure to manage a team of very ambitious people, working with passion. What we do is always ambitious and innovative, because entrepreneurs come to us only with such projects. I am very glad that I managed to reach a situation, in which the passion of my employees was caught up by the courage of projects undertaken by the Institute at present. The new KOMAG strategy will highlight these features, it will be innovative, full of new technologies, IT, robotics and automation from the field of green, practical solutions for businesses and inhabitants of Silesia. It will be the strategy under the banner of technologies connected with the energy storage, let’s add – with green storage of energy.
In other words the strategy will fit in the directions of changes in Silesia?
Yes, positively we will show technologies which were developed by us in recent years, innovative solutions and to a big extent already checked in technical tests. In my opinion we are ready to leave a stamp in the field of renewable sources of energy in Silesia. To be honest, I am pleased that our ideas and solutions, which have been commercialized for years fit in the National Recovery Plan, as we know, which has already been sent to the European Commission. Personally, I perceive the Green Deal as a great chance for the whole region. An accessibility of big financial means to be spent on new solutions must, in my opinion, cause a dynamic development of Silesia. At KOMAG we look at this process through the prism of change which gives a chance of development, a transition to rational and optimum use of the potential of infrastructure and of sites here, in Silesia.
Please reveal to us: what ideas does KOMAG have for the green directions of changes?
The energy transformation of our country, which is communicated to us in the media, is based on abandoning coal for the benefit of the RES. Such a radical change must cause certain implications in all the spheres of economic-and-social life not only in Silesia, but also in the entire country. Interesting enough, the inhabitants of Silesia were the fastest ones to spot the chance in renewable energy sources and at present our region has become the leader in the number of photovoltaic installations, constructed within the framework of the “My Electricity” programme and as the RES market is observed, this trend will not be stopped soon.
On one hand we should be pleased with that, however professionals know that such a rapid increase in the number of renewable sources generates serious problems, which we, as engineers, must solve quickly, remembering that photovoltaic installations are a very unstable source of the energy stream. A solution of the instability consists in the energy storage and here, as KOMAG, we have substantial ideas and concepts, which in our opinion can solve the RES problems in the systematic form.
What is more, we think that stores of energy, such as designed by us, constitute a reaction to the need of the systematic regionalization of energy security and can – and in my opinion should obligatorily be an essential element of the process of planned transformation of the hard coal mining sector. In our assessment the role of energy stores, defined in such a way together with more and more rapidly developing RES sector, will increase, in particular that they also play a role of the grid stabilizer. Nowadays, our stores of energy are already designed in such a way that their construction, here in Silesia, constitutes an attractive chance for a development of the entire local community due to the form as well as function. It is a certain type of the second life for the objects which, at present, are often degraded. We often talk about thoughtless liquidation and destruction, but we want to transform, maintaining all the time the regional character of this land. At present we look for the following possible construction sites of photovoltaic installations and small wind power plants on the post-mining sites. We also bear in mind a possibility of using geothermal heat in our stores, which could be collected by mine water. For many years KOMAG has been conducting conceptual, design and implementation projects in this scope. We are the leader in designing, inter alia, of battery systems, supplying machines and equipment as well as storing electric energy.
Therefore, what is an energy store and how does it operate in practice?
There are a few methods of storing energy, which depend on the land specificity and the surroundings of the managed area as well as on the object itself together with its infrastructure. We talk here about e.g. a short time production of electric energy, translocating vehemently a stream of water to the shaft, when there is a demand for energy with use of gravitationally translocated water tanks, being counterweights, lowered to the shaft, and poured out at the bottom. We would like to use the existing shaft winding system for this purpose, after its indispensable adaptation.
A very interesting idea, but will you manage to reason the circle into implementing it?
The transformation is already a fact. And if the region is to experience the transformation effects in the possible most gentle way, we must face a few challenges. I daresay that Keynes once said that “a difficulty does not consist in creating new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones…”. These words, in an excellent way, reflect my approach to the transformation issue of the whole sector. We must look for new solutions, which will also generate new work-places, we must give these sites to the local community and new businesses. We cannot afford losing this chance. We know where the Germans, the French and also the English were not successful, we know what kind of mistakes they made and we know what we want to do here, at us. We must guarantee an ecological character of these projects. We talk about using shafts in total or after their adaptation as water tanks. We have developed a conception of the pumped-storage power station based on the existing shaft, being a storage reservoir. We conduct projects in the scope of hydrogen electrolysis, although to be precise, I should have said that an electrolysis of water will enable us to generate oxygen and hydrogen, which we also want to store. However, an energy recovery is planned from the stored hydrogen with use of fuel cells. Nowadays, we already work on the information system for the energy management on the local level. One of the most essential problems, which we must solve, exactly includes energy management and rational use of the RES. We want our system to be able to balance renewable energy sources, store the energy and secure its supply in the expected quantity to the final receiver all the day and night long. That is why we undertook a collaboration with the world leader of this type solutions, the IBM Company, which is already our partner in introducing IT and in managing the generated and stored energy at the big scale level.
I understand that so far it has been in the planning stage. What is needed for implementing the solution in practice?
We are not in the planning phase any more. At present we sign agreements and contracts with our partners. A conception of energy stores and of their operation monitoring systems has been developing at the Institute for many years. The main problem, consisted in as usual, in the lack of financial means, which, I believe, will be guaranteed by us at present. Obviously, for such a complex undertaking, apart from the collaboration with IBM, a disposer of the post-mining site and a partner who has experience in a reconstruction and an adaptation of the underground and surface of post-mining areas, will be indispensable. We are going to start a collaboration with these entrepreneurs. As regards shafts, in Poland the Enterprise for Shafts Construction has the biggest competences. It is a part of the Jastrzębska Coal Company. If there is a will of collaboration from their part, we would like to work with them. Obviously, the whole undertaking is planned in contact and according to the policy of the Ministry of State Assets. Finally we will have to develop our established consortium. One undertaking can be realized in a small group, but we talk about the whole mining branch which will be steadily becoming extinct. Some sites will be available for a management and at the moment the resources are unimaginable. Even today we invite to a collaboration.
Have such solutions already been implemented anywhere in the world?
To the best of my knowledge they have NOT! Such a complex approach to the energy storage with use of such a wide scale of solutions and such big geo-spatial scale has not been realized anywhere in the world. Some demonstration facilities and laboratory installations were constructed, but nobody attempted a task which we are going to achieve. We want to break a stereotype that the energy store is an implementation of classical idea of a pumped-storage power station, such objects have been known in our country for a long time.
Before a solution is implemented into practice on a big scale, for sure such a demonstrator should be prepared by us and I know that you are ready for a realization of this task. How much time do you need for its installation?
In principle, we are talking about a prototype of the installation, but the prototype will be full size and it will be bringing business profits, it will generate, store and stabilize energy. If we say today “start today”, I assume that within three to four years the installation will be fully completed. There is a lot work to be done by us such as a feasibility study, a process of designing of the infrastructure or projects related to such objects as shafts. However, this assumed realization time is realistic.
As it is known, in parallel to this idea, KOMAG does not idle and looks for other innovative solutions in the field of the power engineering.
Our Institute specializes, inter alia, in numerous mining applications of battery systems based on lithium batteries, operated in explosive atmospheres as well as in hard climatic conditions. At present we develop a motor boat for users with disabilities and a glider hoist supplied from lithium batteries. We also have a conception of a cheap electric energy tank using worn-out and storage batteries. Our objective is to show that Silesia can manage out-of-use and often degraded mining sites and transform them into useful and economically profitable undertakings, maintaining work-places and creating chances of preserving the monumental industrial architecture.
You also boast of clean energy sources.
Yes. I want to make KOMAG green. It is a matter of honour and credibility for me. It is also a part of our new strategy. We were born here, we educated our children here, we live here and we will show the whole world, in our own way, what the Green Deal means in Silesian. We are very particular about storing, generating and managing green energy, so we want to start from ourselves and very soon when you will be coming to Gliwice, you will be able to see a construction of a photovoltaic installation on our buildings. We also plan an installation of heat pumps and our own stores of electric energy. This model of activity will enable us to conduct a microtest of our designs which we want to realize in a big scale. Aiming at a realization of green projects, we must prove that KOMAG is ready to propose a transformation method, to show the solutions and implement them together with the partners in the industrial scale. We will not do that because it is easy but on the contrary because it is difficult. Once George Bernard Shaw said that life is not to be easy but let’s have courage and then it can be exquisite. I can assure you that KOMAG does not lack courage. As always I invite all those interested in collaboration to contact us. Really, it is worth doing, let’s change our Silesia together.
Interviewed by: Bartłomiej Szopa
