Instytut Maszyn Przepływowych im Roberta Szewalskiego Polskiej Akademii Nauk - Baltic Eco-Energy Cluster

The list of main beneficiaries of BKEE's activity includes:

• business people investing in agro energy complexes, cogeneration micro power plants, and other renewable energy based power plants,
• producers of facilities and installations being the technological equipment for agro energy complexes and micro power plants; including innovation and implementation oriented businesses,
• energetic plant planters and biofuel producers providing energy for agro energy complexes,
• territorial self-government units (gminas, towns, poviats) - by meeting energy needs of residents, increasing employment and tax incomes, promoting the region,
• small and medium-scale businesses interested in the reduction of operating costs and taking opportunities of developing new business activities on the renewable energy market,
• local communities interested in environment protection - by reducing the emission of harmful substances to the atmosphere,
• groups of scientists - by gaining extra financial resources for scientific research.

The activities planned within the framework of the Green Alternative - Baltic Eco-Energy Cluster include research and development activity, developing a series of new-technology laboratories, establishing a series of demonstration and training centres, and assistance in implementing innovative technologies by economic units - production plants and rural farms, in the form of the results of scientific research and the prepared model documentations made public.

Basic projects to be executed in the first stage of operation in the selected thematic areas include:

Cogeneration of small and medium-scale thermal and electric energy

• Formulating assumptions for models and projects of small and medium-scale cogeneration power plants fired by biomass for individual and industrial receivers, including:
  • optimisation of boiler furnaces for burning selected types of biomass,
  • selecting microbearings and microrotors,
  • the turbine and high-revolution generator system,
  • micro heat exchangers and condensers.
• Cooperation of biomass fired micro power plants with other facilities (solar collectors, adsorption refrigerators, thermoelectric components, energy storage systems)
• Investigations and development of new technologies for burning in oxygen and porous deposits
• Detection, separation, and utilisation of CO2 from combustion gases using phase transitions. Building the pilot installation.

Hydrogen technologies and fuel cells

• Distributed integral systems of hydrogen reforming and their implementation in an intelligent energy and transport network - developing a concept of hydrogen highway of energy and transport
• Thermodynamic modelling of hybrid cycles making use of fuel cells as the main energy converter
• Advanced plasma methods in eco-energy engineering - plasma-based production of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier

New materials

• Developing new electro-hydrodynamic and plasma-based material nanotechnologies for cogeneration power plant components, including:
  • materials resistant to high temperature and abrasion,
  • porous materials for combustion chambers,
  • micro- and nanotubes for heat exchangers,
  • materials for fuel cells,
  • nonadhesive and low-friction materials,
  • ceramic and composite layers, resistant to biomass provoked corrosion.

Production and conversion of solid, liquid and gas biofuels

• Building the installation for fuel production from agricultural and municipal wastes, and those generated by the agriculture and food industry
• Oil production in the process of thermal depolimerisation of biomass and stabilised municipal wastes
• Building systems for synthesis gas production from wet biomass

Energetic plant production technologies

• Developing production of energetic plants based on balanced needs and flexible systems of agricultural production
• Examining productivity of perennial energetic plants and comparing energetic capacity of their biomass in the fermentation and gasification processes in thermogenerators
• Collecting and processing of biomass created in eutrophicated surface waters

Utilisation of water, wind, and solar energy

• Developing a new method for designing ultra low-head water turbines (up to 3 m) for small water power engineering
• Examining aerodynamics, thermodynamics and dynamics of conventional thermal turbines working in reduced conditions and changed loads resulting from electric energy generation in a distributed system
• Cheap wind turbine for an individual farmstead
• New micro- and nanolayers in solar collectors
• Examining optoelectronic properties of silicon-free CIGS materials for photovoltaics

Assistance in developing the agro energy industry

• Working out an interactive model of the agro energy complex (in UML language), to allow making comparisons between different technological and design solutions, and selecting an optimal solution for a given location
• Developing and implementing an internet information system on opportunities to invest in agro energy in gminas, oriented on potential investors and farmers
• Developing instruments of assistance in construction projects taking into account energy saving solutions

Research laboratories, and demonstration and training centres

• Extending and equipping the Cogeneration Micro Power Plant Laboratory at the PAS Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery
• Building the Nanotechnology Laboratory at the PAS IFFM
• Building and equipping the Cogeneration Micro Power Plant Demonstration Centre in Rusocin
• Extending and equipping the Renewable Energy Laboratory at the Gdansk University of Technology
• Extending and equipping the Renewable Energy Laboratory at the Koszalin University of Technology
• Extending and equipping the laboratory in the Renewable Energy Centre of the University of Warmia and Mazury
• Extending the Energetic Plant Agrotechnology Centre in Kwidzyn
• Setting up the Renewable Energy Advanced Technology Centre in Łężany

Implementation projects

• Building agro energy complexes in the gminas of Gołdap, Gniewino, Kępice, and Górowo Iławeckie, and in the poviats of Lidzbark Warmiński, Nowe Miasto Lubawskie, and Kwidzyn
• Building a pilot modular plant to produce biogas from green mixture in Orneta
• Modernisation of boiler houses and their adaptation to biomass burning in the gminas of Kępice and Górowo Iławeckie
• Building wind farms in the gminas of Gołdap and Górowo Iławeckie
• Building the wind field in Szwarcenowo (poviat of Nowe Miasto Lubawskie)
• Building the water power plant on the Gołdap river
• Building a pilot hydroset on the low water head stage
• Building the Planeta's House in Gniewino
• Implementing the programme "Solar roofs for Powiśle" in Kwidzyn

Moreover, there are regular members' meetings organised by cluster management that facilitate knowledge transfer, networking, information dissemination and collaboration among the members.