Annually several departments celebrate their birthday earlier than the Works. This is quite clear. The official date of birth of Zaporizhstal is 16 November, when at 6.40 pm the first pig iron was produced in the blast furnace shop. Preparation for this event had to be done, including the construction of all the required facilities for the production of steel.
– Pavel Petrovich Kushnarenko, Superintendent of TPP, stated that the birth of TPP is considered 14 November 1933, when TPP was ready to supply heat carriers to start the first Zaporozhye blast furnaces. At that time the first operating stage of TPP included 2 boiler aggregates of firm “Stein-Mueller”, fuel supply, fuel oil pumping house with storage tanks, water treatment shop, 2 turbo blowers “General Electrics”. Boiler aggregates No.1 and No.2 of firm “Brown Boveri” were already mantled. Simultaneously the main control panel and switchgear were under construction. At that time Z.O. Manevich, V.F. Plyusch, L.I. Rabinovich, I.M. Kiyan, V.A. Verigo and M.V. Gak were at the head of TPP.
After the war broke out the shop was shut down and the unique equipment were evacuated to the rear areas. After liberation of Zaporozhye in 1943 TPP was completely ruined. It was impossible to rebuild the Works without any continuous supply of power carriers. Hence a railway mobile power plant was placed near TPP with a capacity of 500 kW. Where boiler No. 2, exploded by the Germans, was located a boiler aggregate of firm “Riley Stoker” and 2 more of firm “Stein Mueller” were mantled.
29 June 1947 can be considered the second birth of TPP and the Works. On this day the first production stage of TPP was put into operation and the first rebuilt blast furnace No.3 was commissioned. With the increase of emissions of blast furnace and coke oven gases in 1953 it was clear that the gases could be effectively used in the processing chain. For this purpose a circular gas pipeline of blast furnace gas was built and in 1954 — a new gas pipeline for coke oven gas. 50 years ago all the TPP boilers were transferred to natural gas. This was an important event because the usage of natural gas and oxygen had an efficient influence on the main production. Soon after that the evaporation cooling system of blast and open-hearth furnaces was introduced and waste heat boilers were built.
In the post war years A.N. Voevodin, N.V. Krashennikov, N.I. Sapozhnikov, D.M. Polskiy, V.A. Kovtun, S.I. Kryuchkov, A.V., A.V. Scherbakov, V.P. Lenskiy, V.L. Ivanov were at the head of TPP.
Since 2004 P.P. Kushnarenko is at the head of TPP. At present TPP consists of 5 shops: 2 boiler shops, turbine shop, electric shop and chemical water treatment shop. 286 persons are working here. There were many more but times change. More automation is introduced and the equipment is modernized. And then the newly enlisted operating personnel is more qualified, being able to combine and fulfill different tasks, the decision of which previously required separate staff. There is quite a lot of machinery and equipment, which has to be repaired, maintained and kept in an operating condition, i.e. 6 boilers with steam capacity 100-150 tons/hour, 6 turbo air blowers, turbo generators for 25 MW, 11 waste-heat boilers and water heating boilers with steam production from 10 to 25 tons/hour. 400 tons/hour of water is processed in the chemical water treatment department. TPP has also 2 black oil fuel storage tanks for 18 000 tons of black oil fuel each.
TPP means thermal power plant. The functions of TPP are expressed in its name. According to P.P. Kushnarenko the main task of TPP is stable supply of power carriers to the Works’ consumers, neighboring plants and now to part of the city. First of all, supply of steam for processing and daily living needs and also hot water for heating premises. Apart from that in emergency cases TPP provides itself and the main metallurgical departments with electricity. It also cleans water for processing needs. The TPP workers are also responsible for the provision of blast, enriched with oxygen, for the production of pig iron. Recently, when the Works provided two regions of the city with hot water in the summer period, the whole country spoke about our TPP. The main thing is that previously there was an example of efficient approach of using power carriers. Why should the atmosphere be heated, when it is possible to provide flats with hot water by saving imported gas?.. Natural gas will not get cheaper, that is why in the future means should be invested in the construction of new heat pipe lines.
In the last few years work is going on at TPP on modernization of the power equipment and automation of the technological process. As far back as 1994 a steam boiler, with capacity 25 tons of steam per hour for the eastern area of the Works, was built. For reliable provision of the blast furnaces with blast in 2000 turbo air blower No.2 was put into operation. Speaking about the quality and economy it should be noted that in these years the inter repair period of the main power aggregates and auxiliary equipment has increased twice. This is a very distinguishing mark of responsibility regarding the operation of all the TPP sections.
With similar goals the modernization of the power boilers was carried out, i.e. to increase the intake of blast furnace gas, let out when transferring to the direct rolling process. Reconstruction of the supply of steam at the Works was also carried out, increasing the reliability of power supply of the switch gear of TPP. All these measures allowed to increase the share of burnt blast furnace and coke oven gases up to 90%, and correspondingly they permitted to save millions of cubic meters of natural gas and tons of black oil fuel. New turbo air blowers, a turbo generator, a steam boiler and pipe lines have already been put into operation or are in pilot production.
Senior foreman of the boiler shop Oleg Galivets, senior operator of the turbine shop Victor Korol, senior foreman of the same shop Andrey Loponos, fitter of boiler shop No.1 Fyodor Beliy, fitters Andrey Kruts, Sergey Nechiporenko, fitter for maintenance of thermal network Victor Danilov, gas electric welder of boiler shop No.2 Nikolai Levanchik, boiler shop operator Elena Dudchenko have contributed greatly to the production.
Thanks to them and their co-workers was it possible to produce 185 mln KW/hours of electric power in 11 months. That is 72% more than in the similar period last year. The results are really impressive. At the same time emmission of blast furnace gas to the bleeder reduced 60%. This is not only economy of power resources but also contribution to the improvement of the ecological situation in the region.
The indices prove that our Works has in due time prepared for the growth of prices on power carriers. Historically it has been a habit to share the heat on the construction site. In this connection each economic player could independently build a boiler and deliver heat to its neighbours. For example, 95 thousand Giga calories of heat was supplied to Dneprospetsstal. The increase totaled to 2.8%.