Despite our strong position in the refining and petrochemical industries, the evolution and direction of the world today cannot be ignored. Customer needs are developing and changing very dynamically. Given the commitment to limit warming to less than 2°C, we have prepared a strategic development plan for 2030 focusing on key areas:
- introducing green hydrogen into our technology and transport;
- increasing the proportion of recycled materials in our products;
- achieving the required proportions of bio-components in liquid fuels;
- decarbonising energy by switching to natural gas;
- introducing renewable energy sources;
- increasing the efficiency of current technologies.
Energy
Our T700 energy source currently burns lignite coal from nearby mines. In the continuous modernisation of energy sources we intend to replace the coal-fired heating plant with a completely new steam-gas cogeneration heating plant, which will be complemented by a photovoltaic power plant together with an electrolyser with an output of at least 26 MW. The new energy source will enable significant reductions in carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and fine dust emissions as a result of the shift away from coal. The area for construction is intended to be inside the Litvínov - Záluží site; it was opened up after the old T200 heating plant was closed down and demolished.
Hydrogen Strategy
We are the largest producer of hydrogen in the Czech Republic. When refining crude oil, we produce approximately 90,000 tonnes per year at both of our refineries. Although this hydrogen could also be used for partial decarbonisation, European legislation only envisages hydrogen produced using electricity from renewable sources in the future. Therefore, in the coming years, we will build an electrolyser on the site of our plant in Záluží near Litvínov, which will be supplied with environmentally-friendly energy from a photovoltaic power plant that we will build on adjacent land. This hydrogen will be used to green production technologies as well as in hydrogen stands at filling stations.
This project fits into the overall strategic concept of ORLEN Group - Hydrogen Eagle and ORLEN Unipetrol - Hydrogen Road Map.
Aware of the importance of hydrogen not only in the energy sector, but also in transport, we have set ourselves a goal by 2030: to build and operate more than 20 hydrogen filling stations in the Czech Republic and additional hydrogen filling stations in Slovakia.
Biofuels
We focus on the recycling of waste vegetable oil. We conducted a field test of blending hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) or bio ingredients into the production process at an ethylene unit. Our goal is to find a suitable way to collect used edible oils from households that will not burden the environment and will not produce new waste materials. We only consider biofuels that meet sustainability and greenhouse gas savings criteria. We are also developing alternative fuels from organic and inorganic sources such as wood chips, used cooking oil and waste plastics.