Partner of the Polish energy transition

Electricity and heat from biogases and special gases: this is also in vogue in Poland. MAN's partner Enervigo prefers to use gas engines with the MAN Engines logo for such projects.

Poland also wants the energy transition. More and more companies and public institutions are relying on renewable energies – but also on the use of production waste, from which electricity and heat can be generated. A typical example is a distillery near Poznań: since 2022, it has been producing methane from waste from alcohol production, which is converted into electricity and heat in a plant-owned combined heat and power plant. Seven MAN gas engines, each with a maximum output of 500 kilowatts (kW), are available for this purpose, which can be flexibly switched on and off depending on the methane supply and energy demand. Such a multi-pack of several smaller motors offers numerous advantages, including faster on-site installation (through prefabrication of the equipment), higher availability through redundancy, shorter lead times, and unlimited partial load capability from 500 kW to 3.5 megawatts (MW). The distillery's plant runs around the clock and delivers an average of 2.8 MW.

4-3---2400-x-1800-px-MAN-Engines-stories-Biogas-Standort.jpg — Proven partner of MAN Engines: Enervigo offers its customers solutions from a single source.

"We recommended gas engines from MAN to our customer because they gave us the best overall package of flexibility, performance, efficiency and price," reports Krzysztof Kapinos, vice president of Enervigo. The Mielec-based company is a partner of MAN Engines, is supported by the Polish importer Multimotors and has enjoyed great success in Poland as an integrator of solutions for the energy transition. It offers its customers solutions from a single source – from consulting and inventory analysis to design, engineering, purchasing, construction and maintenance of the plants. This was also the case with the distillery: after analysing the customer's requirements, the Enervigo experts recommended the use of MAN gas engines, which can burn biogases and special gases in addition to natural gas without any problems.

Such solutions are currently in demand in Poland. "Many of our customers want to decarbonize, on the one hand through the use of renewable energies, but also with the help of production waste," explains Krzysztof Kapinos. "We serve companies from a wide range of industries in this area, and there are also many sewage treatment plants." Depending on the amount of methane produced, the latter use engines with outputs between 200 kW and 1 MW. To date, Enervigo has completed around ten installations, with two new installations added in 2023 alone.

4-3---2400-x-1800-px-MAN-Engines-stories-Biogas-Motor-1.jpg — Powerhouse: The MAN E3262s, which run on methane from alcohol production waste, deliver 500 kilowatts of power per engine.

MAN gas engines are fit for the hydrogen future

In addition to climate protection, the economic benefits also play a role for customers: In times of rising energy prices, they can save costs by having their own combined heat and power plants. The Polish state supports them with subsidies for investment and operating costs. Enervigo implements the majority of these systems with MAN products, not least because they are already fit for the future. "Our customers attach great importance to the fact that hydrogen can be added to the gas for the engines," says Kapinos. "This is still a market of the future, but companies want to be prepared for it. With gas engines from MAN, they are."

But the products from Bavaria are also future-proof in other respects. "MAN products are open to the integration of external solutions," says Krzysztof Kapinos. "For example, we have our own tool for predictive maintenance, which we use in the plants. And if a problem does arise, MAN shines with competent customer service and very good spare parts logistics. All this helps us to be a good partner for our customers in Poland." The rapid availability of spare parts is guaranteed by MAN Engines' partner Multimotors in Poland and the fact that the engines are running in large quantities in large-scale production. In the case of niche solutions, the waiting times and associated costs are much more problematic in the 1MW class.