(81) 2013 Visaginas NPP Specialists in Riga on May 15 of This Year The

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Visaginas NPP Specialists in Riga On May 15 of this year the Faculty of Transport and Mechanical Engineering of Riga Technical University was visited by Dr. Rimantas Vaitkus, the Chairman of the Company Visagino Atomine Elektrine (VAE) and Valdas Ledzinskas, Director of the Technology Department. At the well- attended seminar VAE representatives presented the development of the Visaginas NPP project.

View of Surge Protective Devices (SPD) Operation Basic Principles SPD is a modern integrated appliances, including both voltage limiting and current limiting and thermal protection devices, and EMI and / or RFI filters. Today EMC immunity AC line filters are used to limit the emission of terminal equipment. The final equipment has become more sophisticated and intelligent, which require a much larger emission and immunity control.

Outstanding Scientist Paul Walden (1863–1957) and his 150th Anniversary in the UNESCO World Event Register for 2013 Paul Walden (1863–1957) was the most outstanding chemist of Latvian origin – a son of a peasant in Livonia. He discovered Walden inversion (founder of dynamic stereochemistry) and discovered a lot (about 50) of highly polar non-aqueous solvents for electrochemistry, introduced Walden salts. Walden graduated from Riga Polytechnicum, lectured there from 1887 till 1919 (professor from 1894), held twice the position of the rector of Riga Polytechnical Institute (1902–1905, 1917–1919). He was Full member of St. Petersburgh Imperial Academy of Sciences, the head of its Chemical laboratory (1910–1918). Since 1919 Walden lived and worked in Germany. He proved the biogenic origin of earth oil. 2013 is declared by UNESCO as memorial year of P.Walden. His dramatic fate has been described.

The Present and Future of the Klaipeda LNG Terminal Project On June 19, 2013, a trip to Klaipeda sea port was organized for a group of the Latvian journalists and energy experts in order to introduce them with an ongoing project of the Baltic’s first floating LNG terminal. The trip was sponsored and arranged by the Lithuanian Embassy and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Lithuania to Latvia Ričardas Degutis personally accompanied the group on its way to Klaipeda.

During the trip, the group met Director of JSC “Klaipedos Nafta” and the actual head of the LNG project – Mr. Rokas Masiulis, who gave a short presentation on the project’s timeline, technical issues and expected economical benefits. The guests also were taken to a boat trip in the aquatorium of the port close to a site where LNG terminal will be located – near Pig’s Back Island.

Project of the New Wooden Biomass Boiler House at HP “Zasulauks” : Completed in Only One Year and a Half The late spring of 2013 is very rich in openings of a brand new, effective and innovative generation capacities within the Riga city central heating system. The recent inauguration of the wooden biomass cogeneration plant at Ziepniekkalns complex was followed with another festive event on May 27: an inauguration of the wooden biomass 20MWth boiler house constructed at CHP Zasulauks. These two projects are bringing the reconstruction of Daugava left bank’s heat generation units of Riga close to a completion. At this point, the diversity of primary energy used for Riga city heating supply is significantly improved, as the share of the wooden biomass as the alternative to the natural gas has reached 20% instead of just 2,5% in 1998.

Communicating vessels of the Energy and Economy at EURELECTRIC Conference in Bologna EURELECTIC’s annual conference and convention that took place in the Italian city of Bologna on June 3–4, 2013, brought up several topicalities of the European electric energy sector, which have been quite embarrassing and even painful for some time already. The European electric energy industry leaders from more than thirty countries shared their fear and doubts about future European energy sustainability, security of supplies and economical sufficiency, if the ever growing support for unconventional, small scale, non-base load generation will continue on with the same intensity. The Chairman of the Board of JSC “Latvenergo” Āris Žīgurs, who also took part at the conference, commented on its agenda and draw parallels between the European energy “hot questions” and our own, local problems in electric energy generation sector.

Helsinki – Lessons to learn? Helsinki and Riga has lot of similarities in size and climate. In same time there is a lot to learn from Helsinki how to build sustainable district heating and cooling in North Europe urban areas. Success story of Helsinki is based on cogeneration and trigeneration implementation with an enviable 90% market share. How they achieved it? Variety in a Fuel mix is important in world of rapid changing fuel prices. Cooperation in power generation asset ownership reduces risk of large scale project implementation. The cornerstone of district heating success is a joint benefit of end-user, owner, municipality and society.