SGK in Krasnoyarsk proposed to scale up the conversion of private houses to eco-heating / Society news of Krasnoyarsk and the Krasnoyarsk Territory / Newslab.Ru
At the conference of participants in the federal project “Clean Air”, which was held in Krasnoyarsk, the Siberian Generating Company presented a project to convert private houses in Krasnoyarsk to electric heating.
Igor Zagorodniy, head of development programs at SGC, spoke about the results of the “New Heat” project as part of the practical discussion “Clean Air: How Cities Are Changing for the Better.” At the same time, as noted by Ivan Zhidkikh, Deputy Chairman of the RSPP Committee on Ecology and Climate Policy, reducing emissions from vehicles and stove heating is 35–60 times cheaper than further reducing the load on the part of large enterprises. This makes working with grassroots sources of pollution one of the most effective areas for improving the environmental situation in the city.
The peculiarity of such sources is their location. The chimneys of private houses are only 5–10 meters high. Therefore, pollutants are concentrated in the ground layer of the atmosphere – where people live.
The governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Mikhail Kotyukov, also drew attention to the importance of this factor. Speaking about the impact of private development on the air condition, he noted that it could be the main supplier of pollutants into the lower layers of the atmosphere.
For Krasnoyarsk, solutions for low pollution sources are especially important. According to the summary calculations of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, at control points of the city the average excess of maximum permissible concentrations of pollutants is 2.9 times. More than 50% of this load comes from individual residential buildings, where coal and firewood are predominantly used. Another 40% comes from motor transport.
The need to evaluate the environmental effect not only by gross emissions was noted by Georgy Arapov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. During the plenary session, he emphasized that from the point of view of human health, the next step in greening should be the reduction and control of maximum permissible concentrations of particularly dangerous pollutants. They are the main irritating factor for humans.
“The negative impact of the private sector on air quality is now a well-studied fact. This source of pollution must be dealt with. It is important to consider different options and choose solutions depending on the technical conditions, infrastructure and economics of the process,” noted Igor Zagorodniy.
This problem is not unique to the regional capital. Deputy Director of the Analytical Center of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources Denis Komarov shared the findings of the transition of households in Ulan-Ude to electric heating.
“With this modeling, emissions are reduced by 37.5 thousand tons per year. This is a reduction of more than a third from the total gross emissions of all autonomous heat supply sources in the city. Electrification is generally one of the most effective ways to radically reduce emissions from the private sector. The limiting factor in such events, of course, is the development of electrical networks, the availability of electrical capacity and the cost of electricity for consumers in the future,” said Denis Komarov.
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It is the economy that remains the decisive condition for residents, the SGC notes. Today, the cost of coal boilers and stove heating is about 250 rubles per square meter. Electric heating is about twice as expensive, but is a zero local emissions solution. To make such a transition affordable, support mechanisms are needed, including a special tariff.
The SGK “New Heat” project has become one of the practical tools for such work in Krasnoyarsk. At the first stage, it included 111 households, then the program was expanded to almost 800 addresses. The total volume of electricity consumption by project participants exceeded 33 million kWh, the volume of compensation amounted to more than 90 million rubles.
As a result of the implementation of measures, the reduction in gross emissions exceeded 2,300 tons. According to expert opinion, the average annual concentrations of pollutants at control points in Krasnoyarsk, located in close proximity to individual buildings, decreased by more than 5%.
The next stage of project development should be the creation of conditions for scaling. A special tariff for electric heating could be a key tool. It will make the transition from coal and wood to electricity economically affordable for residents and provide the city with a sustainable environmental result without an increase in local emissions.
Igor Zagorodniy also noted that SGK is studying other alternatives to traditional heating. In particular, an experiment on the use of heat storage devices has recently been completed. In addition, the Company is considering the possibility of installing heat pumps. Such solutions can be used where they are suitable in terms of technical parameters, cost of implementation and further operation.
