Geothermal district heating in Torun

Poland

Jun 20

Overview

Toruń is a Polish city with a population of about 200 000 inhabitants and a “UNESCO World Heritage Site”. It is one of the oldest cities in Poland as it was first settled in the 8th century. Its geothermal district heating system was officially inaugurated in 2022.

The installation consists of two circuits. The first one reaches the inhabitants of Toruń. The second one provides hot water to the Academy of Social and Media Culture and the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization and St. John Paul II.

Heat from the geothermal heating plant now accounts for about 8% of heat in the district heating system in Toruń, which is managed by PGE Toruń.

The Toruń geothermal installation fits perfectly into the Polish energy strategy, which wants to expand geothermal energy in the country. Anna Moskwa, Minister of Climate and Environment pointed out that geothermal energy is a pillar of the Polish energy transformation as half of the country's territory has geothermal potential.

“Geothermal energy was created thanks to extraordinary social determination and extraordinary leadership in this area to bring this project to completion. Thanks to this, today we have a very interesting example of geothermal energy, which has been successful and provides heat”

— Sławomir Mazurek, former Polish Deputy Minister of Climate

Investments

The heating plant was built on the initiative of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk and developed by Lux Veritatis, a Catholic church-tied foundation. The investment for the project began in November 2008 and the heating plant was ready in 2020. However, its commissioning was postponed due to leaking pipes in one of the wells. It was necessary to build a replacement well.

To help with the project, the monks received funding of PLN 26.5 million (EUR 6.2 million) in 2015. The state-owned PGE group then took over the management of the installation.

It was co-financed by the Cohesion Fund of the European Union through the Operational Program Infrastructure and Environment. Public money was also used to pay for gas-powered water heaters.

Technical details

Geotermia Toruń draws geothermal water from the sandstone deposits of the Lower Jurassic. It is over 60 degrees Celsius. In the heating plant, the water goes to the thermal exchangers. This is where heat is extracted from it. Then the geothermal brine returns to the deposit. It circulates in a closed circuit.

The construction of the geothermal heating plant started in 2020, with plans to start operations by September of the same year. However, a pipe leakage in one of the wells entailed the drilling of a replacement well, causing the delay.

Heat from Geotermia Toruń supplies the city’s heating network that is owned by state company PGE Toruń. The plant has a capacity of about 18 MW and is expected to generate annual heat sales of 234,000 GJ. This constitute about 8% of the heat managed by PGE Toruń, with the rest supplied by a gas-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plant and a biogas heating plant.