REGIONAL SYSTEM FOR ENERGY STORAGE OF SILESIA A REPLY TO THE SECOND LIFE OF MANY POST-MINING SITES
Discussion with Mr. Dariusz Prostański, Professor at KOMAG,
Director of the KOMAG Institute of Mining Technology.
Good morning, Professor Prostański, it’s time to come back to our discussion on energy warehouses, although let me tell you that several people whom I have had discussions with drew my attention to the fact that the interview with you was very interesting and above the ordinary, because it showed a completely new conception of the region transformation, keeping the distance to a description of energy storage technical aspects. Keeping this formula, can you please tell me how your conception is being developed? Where are you as regards a preparation of the KOMAG strategy and has anybody become interested in your ideas at all?
To be honest, I also answered a few interesting phone calls on the subject of that interview (laughter). Apart from a certain courtesy and sometimes may be even an emotional uneasiness, the majority of opinions were positive. However, from time to time I was irritated by the fact that not all the people understood our idea of the storage and I had to be explaining to many people for a long time that we were not going to construct pumped-storage power stations, replacing mines in Silesia.
I was very pleased that all my interlocutors noticed and appreciated the main message of my conception: NOT TO DESTROY BUT TO TRANSFORM AND MAINTAIN THE REGIONAL CHARACTER OF SILESIA. I perceive the energy transformation in such a way and when the social agreement was ratified by the representatives of trade unions and the government delegation on 28th April 2021 it is already a fact.
As regards our strategy the activities are on and in the end of June I will be able to inform about the main directions of our research work and about the future of KOMAG which will be built here in Silesia in our own way – i.e. efficiently!
I can say just now that a conception of generating clean energy, it’s storage and a system management will form the foundation of our research till the year 2050.
The key word is SYSTEM. Americans say - a system is already a solution - I share this opinion and that is why the main objective of the Research Team, appointed by me, is a construction of the REGIONAL SYSTEM OF ENERGY STORAGE assuming a decentralization and Hey regionalization of the power system our conception for the second life of many post-mining sites with an emphasis on new, social opening of the whole quarters of Silesia.
I cannot stay calm I believe that I will manage to persuade decision makers to accept this changes, Which will finally also generate new work places will show the beauty of these grounds even if it is to be an industrial beauty I told you that I was brought up in Katowice in the Nikisz quarter during the time when it was not the most beautiful quarter of Katowice. My character and my Silesian origin were shaped there.
Silesian system of energy storage, what is it?
You used a beautiful name, yes the Silesian System is our idea of participating in a decentralization and regionalization of the power system in Poland. Please stay calm as I can see that I made you uneasy a little. At KOMAG we do not generate conceptions weakening our country, on the contrary we built crucial technologies for the benefit of us all. But by turns, renewable sources of energy such a photovoltaics and to a smaller extent wind turbines (mainly mini ones) are characterized by the fact that each inhabitant can have them. It is sufficient to have only appropriate real estate. In the result a huge number of microinstalled energy sources appeared and they supply energy in an extra way to our households. As time passes, at determined conditions the amount of electric energy which is supplied via the electric grid from big energy generating sources to our houses, should decrease. Thus, in a certain sense, a responsibility of big energy producers for its supplies will be reduced, what would not be possible without the energy storage system.
Of course, please don’t worry, remembering that it is a certain process and for several years to come big producers in our country, so called professional power engineering, will be responsible for meeting the Poles demand of energy as well as responsibility ‘for the country energy security when atmospheric conditions and use of RES would be impeded.
However, coming back to our conception, there is no doubt that to bigger extent we ourselves here in Silesia will manage the energy demand. Thus the decentralization together with the generating sources and a management “piece” of theirs. The bigger number of generation sources of in the power system, the bigger degree of its decentralization.
Together with a decentralization of generation sources a decentralization of energy security occurs. As I have already mentioned, due to an availability of photovoltaic installations to a bigger extent, we will be responsible for our energy security ourselves. Of course, it will be possible only when efficient energy storage will be functioning. When the accepted legal solutions become more and more common such as energy co-operatives and clusters, this decentralized energy security will start to embrace also our neighbours, our town, commune, district. This decentralization of the sources system and the decentralization of energy security are strengthened by the fact that an appropriate intensity of solar radiation, mainly in household photovoltaic systems more energy is generated than used. Most often this surplus is transmitted to the power system, and it is stored very rarely, which generates big problems. You remember that during our former conversation, I mentioned that photovoltaics are an unstable source of energy stream. Completely new problems, connected even with planning, modeling and influencing the systems of conventional disk dissipated energy, overlap. These systems can be efficient not lower that the regional level and that is why I mentioned a regionalization.
At KOMAG we believe that the system regionalization may, to a large extent, limit the aforementioned negative phenomena which result from the dissipated power engineering. In our opinion the regional level is also an efficient level of an integration of dissipated sources. Many symptoms indicate that in a few years the most important documents for inhabitants will be regional, not state strategies of power security.
In our opinion these trends cannot be stopped and they are independent from decision-makers. However, to be able to control the situation all the same, we suggest a construction of the Silesian System of Energy Storage. We want it to be the first one in Poland and we know how to build it, we have the indispensable competences is and we already conduct discussions with business partners and the Ministry of States Assets. I think that I will not exaggerate, if I say that the conceptions, presented by us, are accepted in Warsaw with a big interest.
Mr. Professor, a preparation of a detailed conception of such a regional system of energy storage requires a huge amount of work, what has already been done and what is ahead of you?
You know, I like the name suggested by you so much that I suggest that we should only use the name: the Silesian System of Energy Storage. Let the readers get used to it. My parents brought me in such a way that if you say about something that it is from Silesia or it has a Silesian character, it must bring to mind laboriousness and as I put it “it is done from the bottom of the heart”. We should follow this path. I believe that it is the right moment to show the world what is within our means.
And as regards a big amount of work? But we have never been afraid of it, we develop the subject, observing all the standards of research and scientific work honestly, we analyze best practices of solutions, realized in the world, we study the literature, conduct test in laboratories and we work on new patents. I am mainly pleased that at present the constructed conception finds a support of decision-makers, it causes discussions and forces for thinking. I am a realist, some people may react to our conception with an incredulous smile, but I do not worry about that - God willing and the motherland let us, we will prove that we are right. According to me, we experience a really special moment at present, when such an ambitious project in such a scale can be realized successfully.
On the one hand we have a turning point and a revolution in solar and hydrogen technologies, but on the other hand a possibility of getting financial means for a transformation of the whole region. The industrial areas wait for their second life and a goal-oriented management, and Silesia waits for its technological chance. Can you indicate a weak point of this conception? William Gibson, the author of the book entitled “Neuromancer”, introducing to the mass consciousness in 1984 the notion of “cyberspace” said: “The future is here. Simply it is not yet to broadly disseminated”. I think that this idea suites our present situation extremely well. For KOMAG it is a chance and I am not going to waste it. I trust my employees, I believe in their activity and determination. As I have already told you, we will do that not due to the fact that it is easy, but due to the fact that it is difficult. I would like to integrate scientific, research-and-development institutions, scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and the whole local communities in a realization of such a complex and multi-dimensional project.
You know, when I read that in Scotland and Japan special scientific-and-research consortia collect funds for a construction of several-score-meter special towers, from which they want to lower loads to store the energy obtained during this process as a conception of a clean energy storage, then I think that our projects are cheaper and what is really important - they are realistic as regards their execution.
And it is necessary to explain to everybody that energy warehouses are not only pump-storage power stations or warehouses of batteries, in particular ion-lithium ones?
Yes, exactly. All of us must understand that nowadays an energy warehouse uses complicated technologies, where a whole spectrum of state-of-the-art and multi-complementary technical solutions is implemented. A perception of energy warehouses, as relatively small-complication investment undertakings, is probably caused by the name “warehouses” itself. It is misleading and it does not reflect in reality the role which energy warehouses can play for the benefit of classical power systems.
These installations, hidden behind such or a modest name, even at present ensure a full spectrum of service functions for power systems, not only connected with the storage of surplus energy. Personally, I believe that a supply of energy to the power system during its deficit, or a flexibility of energy supply, a voltage stabilization, a stabilization of supply quality, a protection of receivers against a short-lasting loss of power, an integration of the dissipated power engineering or are reduction of the great overloading, are even more important.
There are more of these support services and I think that in relation to a construction of smart grids a significance of services, realized by energy warehouses, will still increase.
Will the Silesian System of Energy Storage be exactly like that, full of state-of-the-art solutions, controlled as a system with use of neuronal networks?
I imagine it exactly like that. Our Silesian System of Energy Storage, as I have already indicated many times, Will be the SYSTEM of internal and external integration of different ways of energy storage. The functions of this SYSTEM cannot be reduced only to a typical, in many cases, devices switching on or off. The key aspect includes an efficient use of synergy of individual storage technologies. An integration of these technologies, a use of advantages of individual technologies at a simultaneous minimization of their disadvantages. That means that such a system must be characterized by a high interactivity and react to the signals from the power grid as well as to obtain forecasts and on the other hand to verify them based on the current real conditions. The work describing the functions of such a system of integration, energy and warehouses infrastructure management as well as the system operational control must be written out in the project initial phase.
Mr. Professor, isn’t it too ambitious? We started our discussion from energy warehouses in the shafts of closed down mines and we finished with a construction of a huge system which probably does not exist anywhere in the world, is it realistic and mainly safe and secure for the power system of our country?
In my opinion it is realistic as much as possible! And you know, please do not take any offence, but I do not care, if it is done anywhere in the world. In confidence I can tell you that you will not find a similar system anywhere. And is it slow me down? I would like to remind you that you are in the Institute which has been developing its projects for 70 years in real life and directs the results to an industrial use. Our suspended monorails in the mining industry, driving by a battery system, where designed when nobody even had might dreams about electromobility and then Elon Musk started his studies at the Faculty of Physics at the Stanford University. The hoisting machines, designed by us are operated all over the world, starting from the KGHM in Poland ending at Vladvostok and they have never failed. It seems to me that Drucker once said that the best method for foreseeing the future is its creation, and here at KOMAG we are not afraid of ambitious projects, we know what we are talking about and we love to create.
As regards safety and security of the power system in our country, our warehouses are to increase safety and security significantly by stabilizing the grid. It is obvious for me that the energy storage technologies will never replace classical energy generation sources of the professional power engineering, but this is not their objective. They are to support and stabilize a dissipated system of the RES power engineering and we design it in such a way.
What is ahead of us, what are you working on now?
Well, such a big project cannot be realized just by ourselves. It is important to be aware of limitations, so at present I carry out intensive activities on a construction of the project consortium. I look for partners and support. To make a long story short, we construct the climate for this idea, we search allies, we explain, encourage and persuade.
In fact none of the former mining countries, which abondoned the mining industry, were capable of managing this ”divorce”. The wounds bleed in England, France and Germany up till the present time, and after all they are rich countries of the West. I believe that our conception gives a new quality and interesting perspectives. That is why, I will willingly discuss a perception of this project also by the social party.
I always highlight the fact that our conception will result in new work-places in Silesia and not in a development and construction industry. I think all of us are aware of the fact that undertakings of this kind build a demand for highly qualified workers from different domains for many years. High class automation engineers, chemists, power engineers, electricians as well as IT engineers and programmers will be indispensable for an efficient operation of the energy storage system. Highly qualified mining personnel will be needed in the investment process because the objects will be the elements of closed down mines, irrespective of their new role, not to mention the production capacity of machines and equipment, apparatus and maintenance personnel. Due to higher and higher environmental requirements, services from the environmental engineering, material science as well as landscape architecture will be indispensable. What else to say, we will build here in Silesia a new branch and it is our objective. I would like the rests after mining, here in Silesia, to be associated for ever with new technologies.
Thank you very much for the discussion, Professor prostein ski and today I would like to make an appointment with you for a meeting concerning the subject: “Energy warehouses and a reaction of the world?” It will be a pleasure for me and already today I invite you to the KOMAG Research Institute in the technological heart of Silesia.
