Bioenergy Insight July/Aug 2013

July/August 2013 Issue 4 • Volume 4

Slow and unsteady North American pellet exporters have little to worry about when it comes to competition from Brazil

Hopping to it

Read what Schmack Biogas is calling ‘a world first’

Germany’s ups and downs

Although the wood pellet sector is faring well, the biogas market is fading fast

Regional focus: South America

Bioenergy xxxx

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xx • December 2011

Bioenergy Insight

contents Bioenergy

Contents Issue 4 • Volume 4 July/August 2013 Horseshoe Media Limited Marshall House 124 Middleton Road, Morden, Surrey SM4 6RW, UK www.bioenergy-news.com publisher & Editor Margaret Dunn Tel: +44 (0)20 8687 4126 margaret@bioenergy-news.com Deputy EDITOR James Barrett Tel: +44 (0)20 8687 4146 james@bioenergy-news.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Keeley Downey Tel: +44 (0)20 8687 4183 keeley@horseshoemedia.com INTERNATIONAL Sales MANAGER Anisha Patel Tel: +44 (0) 203 551 5752 anisha@bioenergy-news.com North America sales representative Matt Weidner +1 610 486 6525 mtw@weidcom.com PRODUCTION Alison Balmer Tel: +44 (0)1673 876143 alisonbalmer@btconnect.com SUBSCRIPTION RATES £130/€160/$210 for 6 issues per year.

Contact: Lisa Lee Tel: +44 (0)20 8687 4160 Fax: +44 (0)20 8687 4130 marketing@horseshoemedia.com

2

Comment

4 Biomass news

10 Biopower news 17 Biogas news

22 Biopellet news

25 Technology news 30 Incident update 31 Green page

32 Court rejects EPA rule for biomass industry 33 New York State furthers green credentials 34 Independence day

A milk powder producing company in Uruguay is to extend its biogas production capabilities in the near future

35 Biomass first in Brazil

Petrochemical industry player Dow is looking to become more sustainably efficient as it moves towards operational status

36 Plant update – South America 37 Slow and unsteady

North American pellet exporters have little to worry about when it comes to competition from Brazil. With investor confidence at an all time low, many pellet plans have yet to take off

40 ‘World’s largest biomass plant’ pulls down the shutters 42 The latest on Drax’s biomass conversion 44 Satisfying the UK’s pellet appetite 46 Germany’s ups and downs

Although the wood pellet sector is faring well, the biogas market is fading fast

A Caribbean rum plantation slashed its energy costs after switching from fuel oil to briquettes

49 Rum with a twist

50 Making densified biomass fuels

The different technologies used to produce biomass briquettes and pucks

52 This degression will not stand: update

53 Wood briquettes with an innovative form

Briquetting has allowed one wood processing firm to optimise its strategy for increasing value and has led to the creation of a new line of business

55 Which drying technology is the most suitable for pellet production?

Follow us on Twitter: @BioenergyInfo

No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in any form by any mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or other means without the prior written consent of the publisher.

Whilst the information and articles in Bioenergy Insight are published in good faith and every effort is made to check accuracy, readers

57 Maine attraction

acting on them as the publisher can accept no responsibility in this respect. Any opinions expressed in this magazine should not be construed as those of the publisher.

ISSN 2046-2476

Bioenergy Insight

James Barrett finds out about a Danish biomass technology that is going down a storm in the US

58 Waste tomato leaves get new lease of life

60 Driving pumping technology to new heights 62 Pump size dilemma

63 Grappling with wood gathering 64 Finding the perfect partner

should verify facts and statements direct with official sources before

An objective evaluation considering CO2 emissions and energy input when using wood as fuel

The Dan Store Terminal in Latvia handles and bulk materials such as wood pellets, grain products and feed. After an expansion, storage capacity today is 90,000 tonnes and it can handle over 1 million tonnes of product

JULY/AUGUST 2013 Issue 4 • Volume 4

66 Unique pumps maximise AD

Slow and unsteady North American pellet exporters have little to worry about when it comes to competition from Brazil

67 Hopping to it

Hopping to it

Read about what Schmack Biogas is calling the ‘first AD plant in the world’ to use waste from hop harvesting for biogas production

Read what Schmack Biogas is calling ‘a world first’

Germany’s ups and downs

Although the wood pellet sector is faring well, the biogas market is fading fast

69 Keen on biogas in Kenya

71 Biogas boom in Normandy 73 Event listing

Regional focus: South America

Front cover image courtesy of Andritz Feed & Biofuel A/S FC_Bioenergy_July-Aug_2013.indd 1

02/08/2013 15:59

July/August 2013 • 1

Bioenergy comment

Hard times for the UK

T

Margaret Dunn Publisher

his month saw the disappointing news that ‘the world’s largest biomass power plant’ is to close in the UK. RWE nPower will shut down the Tilbury power station in October, stating that the company-wide cost reduction programme had impacted the level of capital available for the project. The company also said the lack of policy clarity made it impossible to make an investment decision.

In what some are calling a U-turn, the UK government has just introduced a subsidy cap for new dedicated biomass power stations of 400MW across England and Wales.

The cap, which has been introduced by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), means that only new biomass stations registered before the 400MW cap is reached will definitely get subsidies.

For the time being this only applies to new dedicated biomass projects and not CHP plants or conversions, such as RWE’s facility. However large generators switching to

biomass from coal will have subsidies phased out by 2027.

One of Britain’s largest power providers Drax has already scrapped plans to spend £2 billion (€2.3 billion) on three self-standing biomass plants in the UK, citing the need for better government support on the back of news of these subsidy restrictions.

Instead it is proceeding with a smaller £700 million project that will convert half of its existing 4,000MW coal-fired plant in North Yorkshire to biomass.

Inside this issue we speak to Drax about how it is progressing with this project. Interestingly, we learnt that the carbon footprint of shipping biomass from the east coast of America is very much the same, in total tonnage terms, as bringing biomass by truck from elsewhere in the UK (Scotland).

Sustainably sourcing biomass fuel isn’t something that’s taken lightly in the UK, and the country is proving it by developing the first nationwide mandatory biomass sustainability standards.

Under the government’s current plans biomass energy will have to show lifecycle reduction in emissions of at least 60% compared to emissions of the EU fossil fuel grid average, such as cutting down trees and transporting fuel.

The country also sets general restrictions for biomass materials sourced from land with high biodiversity value or high carbon stock, including primary forest, peatland and wetlands.

But some say this approach has proven untenable over the past two years. The UK government is expected to confirm new sustainability standards for biomass this month, with the rules likely to come into effect next year.

This will have a wider impact on biomass imported from North America and across the globe, so watch this space for the latest information.

We hope you find this issue useful and, as always, we welcome your own comments.

Best wishes, Margaret

Follow us on Twitter: @BioenergyInfo

2 • July/August 2013

Bioenergy Insight

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biomass news

xxxxxx Bioenergy

European Commission welcomes big bio-based industry initiative Forty-eight companies have joined forces with the European Commission this July to set up a PublicPrivate Partnership (PPP) for bio-based industries.

The PPP brings together €3.8 billion ($4.9 million) with an aim to advance the bioeconomy in Europe. The European pulp and paper industry is one strategic partner in this PPP, with 13 of the 48 member companies from the sector as well as the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) as an associate member.

The PPP combines €1 billion of public support from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme with €2.8 billion of industry investment. The initiative, beginning in 2014 and lasting for six years, will create new markets and value chains for bio-based products,

The PPP will aim to develop Europe’s bioeconomy

bringing jobs and growth to Europe.

‘We have worked hard to help make the PPP become reality, it is a great initiative,’ says CEPI director general Teresa Presas. ‘This support for innovation and demonstration is much needed.

It keeps investments in Europe and helps realise our industry’s future.’

The PPP will capitalise on Europe’s research leadership to bring solutions to commercial scale via pilot and

demonstration projects, with biorefineries at the heart of developments.

The biorefinery concept is well placed in the pulp and paper industry, which already constitutes a large part of the bioeconomy in terms of volume and value. The sector’s focus on value creation from raw materials is leading to new products such as biochemicals, bio-composite materials and second-generation biofuels. l

Scottish council confirms long-term health of biomass projects The Highland Council (THC) in Scotland has awarded a long-term contract for the servicing, maintenance and repair of biomass installations, including the supply of wood fuel, across 59 sites.

The £1.2 million (€1.4 million) per annum contract went to Fort Williambased biomass heat company HWEnergy and will last for four years.

As many Highland communities are

4 • July/August 2013

off the gas network, biomass offers an alternative to more traditional fossil fuels. The deal is expected to result in projected savings of £900,000 a year across the 59 sites, 40% less than the cost of heating from oil. The initiative will also see a combined carbon saving of 7,500 tonnes per annum, the equivalent to 30 million car miles off the road each year.

THC claims it is the first local authority to embrace the Scottish government’s Biomass Energy Supply Agreement framework for public and third sector, introduced

earlier this year, designed to help achieve the government’s target of 11% of heat generated through renewable sources by 2020.

Councillor, and leader of THC, Drew Hendry says: ‘We have a responsibility as a major public body and employer to create a greener, healthier future. We have been taking steps to move away from the more traditional heat sources toward a renewable alternative in recent years and have already brought biomass boilers on to various sites across the Highlands, with further installations planned over next few years.’ l

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July/August 2013 • 5

biomass news

Obama delivers renewed renewable energy support for the US US President Barack Obama gave an address on climate change in June during a visit to Georgetown University in Washington DC. Obama wants to cut carbon pollution and reduce global warming and told an audience of students and visitors: ‘I refuse to condemn your generation, and future generations, to a planet that is beyond fixing.’

Among broad measures outlined, Obama wants to see a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the promotion of renewable energy while aiming to hit a 17% cut in carbon emissions recorded in 2005 by the end of this decade.

He also took the brave decision to bypass a Congress stuck in stalemate to issue an executive memo to the Environmental protection Agency (EPA) calling for new rules for power plants to limit GHG emissions.

The transportation sector has seen calls for further increased fuel economy standards for heavy duty trucks, with the plan also stating ‘biofuels have an important role to play

Passionate: Obama wants to slash GHG emissions by 2020

in increasing our energy security, fostering rural economic development and reducing GHG emissions from this sector’.

The action plan also reaffirms the Obama administration’s support of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and points to investment by the government into R&D for next generation biofuels.

The Advanced Ethanol Council (AEC) says the advanced ethanol industry stands behind the Obama administration in its effort to combat climate change.

‘The President is right to identify the renewable fuel standard and existing federal regulations as critical to the effort to reduce greenhouse

gas emissions from the energy sector,’ states AEC executive director Brooke Coleman.

‘Pound for pound, advanced ethanol is the most carbon reductive alternative to petrol in the world and the RFS is driving the commercial deployment of our industry.’

Furthermore, the action plan informs that the US has more than doubled electrical generation from renewable sources during Obama’s first term, and he hopes to do the same again by 2020.

To help achieve that target, the Department of the Interior has been directed to approve 10GW of new renewable capacity by 2020. The plan also notes the Department of Defense

is committed to deploying 3GW of renewable energy on military installations by 2025, including biomass.

‘There are two major areas where this administration’s aid can make a big difference for the biomass industry,’ Bob Cleaves, president of the Biomass Power Association, was quoted as saying. ‘The first would be a commitment to the use of federal lands for renewable energy production, and secondly a confirmation of biomass’ value as a renewable energy source.’

Federal agencies are also setting a new goal to reach 100MW of installed renewable capacity across the federally subsidised housing stock by 2020. l

New study reveals biomass potential of Tasmania A German scientist believes forests in Tasmania could hold a key to bountiful bioenergy production.

Andreas Rothe, from the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan, has spent

6 • July/August 2013

five months studying the region and ascertained that waste from those forests could generate millions of dollars worth of bioenergy.

He estimates more than 3 million tonnes of biomass per person could be sourced via wood waste and low quality eucalypts to generate heat and power, putting Tasmania’s

forest resources on a par with Finland and Sweden.

‘These countries produce 30% of their total energy from forest biomass and the Tasmanian potential would be similar,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘It depends which forests the biomass is sourced from but if you do it from a plantation, which

are abundant in Tasmania, then it can be renewable.’

Rothe reveals the standards used during tests in the study were more conservative than used by his team in European research.

‘Tasmania has so much potential that there is no need to harvest intensively,’ he adds. l

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biomass news

Malaysia aims to become bioenergy hub with new joint venture Five plantation companies in Malaysia have signed a biomass joint venture cluster agreement to benefit the state of Sabah.

The biomass project borne from this agreement, a concept from the Agensi

Inovasi Malaysia (AIM), aims at aggregating sufficient volumes of biomass for a variety of downstream processing activities by allowing palm oil providers to come together.

The joint venture entity would then decide whether the biomass should be used for solid (pellet) or liquid (ethanol) fuels.

The five companies involved

are Bell Group, Kelas Wira, Teck Guan Group, Golden Elate and Genting Berhad, but others are expected to join in the near future.

‘Palm oil mills are the source of empty fruit bunches, a main ingredient of pellets, and AIM has identified about 70 of 120-plus mills in Sabah to be potential partners in this biomass JV cluster,’ CEO of

Sabah-based global investment hub POIC, Pang Teck Wai, was quoted as saying.

‘Eventually we hope to aggregate some 1.5 million dry tonnes per joint venture cluster to realise the objective of making Sabah the Malaysian centre for second generation biofuel, as envisaged in the national Economic Transformation Programme.’ l

Algae-based biomass partnership expanded Algae-based oil production company Sapphire Energy is to commercialise a new industrial scale conversion technology needed to upgrade algae biomass into crude oil with partner Linde Group.

The partnership hopes to accelerate plans for a commercial algae facility

The pair will refine the hydrothermal treatment process developed and operated by Sapphire at pilotscale. In addition, they will jointly license and market the technology into industries including algae,

municipal solid and farm waste.

The agreement spans a minimum of five years through the development of Sapphire’s first commercial scale, algae-to-energy production facility.

‘Large energy projects like this require significant partnerships to fund the development of new technologies and make available engineering resources needed to bring these projects on line at commercial scale,’ says Sapphire CEO Cynthia Warner.

This partnership builds upon a previous agreement in May 2011 to develop a low cost, CO2 management system for open pond, algae-to-fuel production. l

First generation biofuels could be capped in Europe The European Parliament Environment Committee has approved draft legislation which will limit the contribution of first generation biofuels toward EU green transport targets.

The Committee’s vote on proposals to deal with possible greenhouse gas

8 • July/August 2013

(GHG) emissions from indirect land use change (ILUC) took place in July. The potential 5.5% cap on transport from all land-based biofuels was passed by 43-26.

The incorporation of ILUC factors into the accounting of GHG emissions for biofuels under the Fuel Quality and Renewable Energy Directives, which some see as controversial, has also been passed.

Any proposals voted in will be put to the Plenary of the European Parliament

in the autumn, when the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) will be able to introduce any potential amendments The European Biodiesel Board (EBB) believes this culmination of what has been a lengthy debate has been asking the wrong questions while looking for solutions.

‘Limiting biofuels production will neither solve hunger, nor will it prevent deforestation,’ says EBB secretary general Raffaello Garofalo. ‘ILUC modelling

remains uncertain and the industry cannot be penalise on groundless assumptions.’

Garofalo and the EBB believe there is a lack of consistent, accurate information in terms of ILUC factors and biofuels contribution, but the organisation does welcome the maintaining of ‘strong incentives’ for biodiesel made from waste and residue feedstocks which can achieve up to 95% GHG reductions.

The vote will take place on 10 September. l

Bioenergy Insight

biomass news

New feedstock facility opening in US

News in brief

Biomass producer and wood waste recycling business Chip Energy officially broke ground on its new biomass recycling and palletising plant in Illinois, US. A portion of the new plant is already built and, upon full completion, the site will be home to 26 40ft tall silos and a 2,300m3 bulk storage area. It will be able to handle feedstocks like corn stover, switchgrass, cherry pits, wood chips and miscanthus.

Lunch was served to visitors during the tour which was cooked on a Chip Energy gasification stove that produces low emissions. l

Norbord accused of exploitation

New feedstock facility on way to completion in US

Biomass producer and wood waste recycling business Chip Energy officially broke ground on its new biomass recycling and palletising plant in Illinois, US. A portion of the new plant is already built and, upon full completion, the site will be home to 26 40ft tall silos and a 2,300m3 bulk storage area.

It will be able to handle feedstocks like corn stover, switchgrass, cherry pits, woodchips and miscanthus.

Lunch was served to visitors during the tour which was cooked on a Chip Energy gasification stove that produces low emissions.

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Bioenergy Insight

Canopus Star’s Romanian grain terminal at the Constanta Port will be able to store 50,000 tonnes following a newly announced expansion.

The expansion will cost €15 million, an investment made by US agribusiness company Cargill and Transport Trade Services (TTS).

This also includes growing the facility’s warehouse capacity to 110,000 tonnes.

The project will be finalised by 2014.

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Bioenergy Insight has learnt that Norbord recently paid an advertising agency to lobby MPs and place adverts in the national press criticising the use of sustainable UK timber sources for energy generation.

On its website, Enagri says, Norbord claims government support for bioenergy has increased average wood prices by 60%.

However, official statistics published by the Forestry Commission has revealed that average timber prices in the UK are actually between 29 and 42% lower than 20 years ago, in real terms.

Enagri’s investigation has also revealed that Norbord’s profits are on the up, rising five-fold at the end of April 2013 compared with the previous year. Norbord says that its European factories, including three in the UK, are operating at full capacity to meet rising demand.

Additionally, its sourcing of raw materials in a bid to cut costs saved it $26 million (€20 million) last year.

Commenting on these findings, Richard Crowhurst,

editor of the Enagri BioenergyWeekly, says: ‘With such a large rise in its profits and European output at a time when UK timber prices are falling and forestry investors are losing money on their day-to-day activities, the fact that Norbord is lobbying MPs and the public to oppose the use of biomass to generate low carbon renewable energy on the grounds that it rises wood prices is at best opportunistic and at worse deeply cynical.

‘Unfortunately it looks like a debate on the pros and cons of using biomass as part of the UK’s energy mix is being driven by people with vested market interests and large advertising budgets, rather than science and common sense.’ l

Pa te

An investigation by Enagri suggests that Canadabased panel board manufacturer Norbord’s lobbying against biomass energy was motivated by expediency and profits.

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biopower news Energos granted planning permission for UK AD plant Clean energy recovery from waste specialist Energos is preparing to build its ninth conversion facility featuring an anaerobic digestion plant after it received planning approval earlier this month.

Based at AmeyCepsa’s Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park in the UK, the facility will convert 90,000 tonnes of non-recyclable household waste into 7MW of electricity — sufficient to power approximately 11,000 homes.

Construction on the Waste Recovery Park is scheduled to begin in 2014, with operations due to commence in 2016.

Energos was the first UK company to be awarded double Renewable Obligation Certificates. The company’s gasification process converts

The facility is due online in 2016

residual, non-recyclable waste into a syngas by using the heat of partial combustion to free hydrogen and carbon in waste. The syngas produces high temperature steam that can then be converted into electricity in a turbine.

The project was approved unanimously by Milton Keynes Council’s Development Control Committee.

Andrew Cousins, project

Energy company gets go ahead for biomass power station North Blyth Energy is to build a 99.99MW biomass-fired power station at Blyth Harbour, Northumberland after being granted permission by the UK government.

It is estimated the new renewable plant will generate enough electricity to benefit 170,000 homes per year.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change says: ‘Sustainably-sourced biomass has an important role to play as part of a balanced energy mix, enhancing energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

If constructed, this development will help bring jobs and growth to the local economy.’ l

10 • July/August 2013

manager for AmeyCespa, says: ‘This facility will utilise technologies to deal with the borough’s waste. It will make the most of people’s everyday rubbish, ensuring as much is recycled as economically possible as well as generating renewable energy and creating electricity from waste which would otherwise have gone to landfill. This in turn creates a saving for

the council and ultimately Milton Keynes taxpayers.’

Energos has developed seven waste-fuelled thermal conversion facilities across Europe and is currently building its second UKbased plant at the Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre in Scotland.

It has also received planning permission for a third facility in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. l

Potential biomass energy for Portsmouth naval base Local news reports claim a renewable energy project may be located at a naval base in Portsmouth, UK. A heat and power facility to cater for two new aircraft carriers and visiting ships is on the table and a biomassbased solution appears to be favoured by the local council, with council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson confirming Helius Energy as being in talks with the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

‘When modern warships turn up here they tap into

the electricity mains and take a huge amount of power,’ Vernon-Jackson was quoted as saying. ‘This project is more sustainable, it may well be cheaper and it will create jobs.’

The MoD says no decision has been made however and other power sources are being looked at too.

As previously reported by Bioenergy Insight, Helius is the same company behind a proposed £300 million (€346.4 million) biomass plant in nearby Southampton, which has seen stiff opposition from local residents. The project remains in limbo. l

Bioenergy Insight

biopower news

Castor biomass project set for Paraguay A wholly-owned subsidiary of USbased BioPower Operations, simply named BioPower, has agreed to develop a castor plantation and milling operation in Paraguay.

Under the terms of the agreement Ambrosia, a development company, will provide the land, pay costs for the testing and give BioPower a monthly $45,000 (€35,100) project management fee and reimbursement of expenses during the test period for subcontractors on the ground in Paraguay.

BioPower will provide project management testing services through the testing phase for up to 12 months until the successful certification of the yield from growing castor is proven, subject to material and adverse events.

Once the project is approved then, under the Castor Master Farm Management Services agreement, $10 million will be invested from Ambrosia towards the building, development and operations of the castor plantation and mill.

BioPower will either earn 6% of the net income for 10 years or have an option to become a 20% owner of the project.

‘We are pleased to have the rare opportunity to work with an organisation like Ambrosia, which also supports our long-term vision of developing profitable sustainable solutions converting biomass into useful and valuable products,’ says NioPower CEO Robert Kohn. ‘It is our intention to complete the certification of the yield requirement and prove the business model warrants an investment in the Paraguay project beyond the first stage.’ l

Bioenergy Insight

A $10 million castor plantation and mill is set for Paraguay

July/August 2013 • 11

Ramada Plaza, Antwerp, Belgium 11-12 September 2013 Day one: 11th September 2013 8.50 Opening remarks from the chair: Updates on European biofuels policy Ruud van Stralen, Commercial Manager, Port of Amsterdam 9.00 What impact does government policies have on advanced biofuels development?

• Current development opportunities across Europe • Will current policies damage market?

• What’s next for advanced biofuel developers?

• What are the proposed alternatives? What are some of the challenges facing them?

Arthur Reijnhart, General Manager for Alternative Energy & Fuels Development Strategy, Shell 9.30 Commission’s proposal for limiting indirect land-use change emissions (ILUC) • Proposal • Impact • Status quo of negotiations Bernd Kuepker, Policy Officer at DG Energy, European Commission 10.00 What impact would a 5% cap have on first generation biofuels production?

• Current production capacities across Europe • Will a 5% cap kill the ethanol market?

• What’s next for biodiesel producers?

• In depth economic modelling assessing the effect on the market • What are the proposed alternatives? How do the economics compare?

Dr Caroline Midgley, Head of Biofuels and Biomass, LMC International

Day One Afternoon Finance Stream

Quality & Feedstocks Stream

2.20 Opening remarks from the chair: Finance stream

2.20 Opening remarks from the chair: Quality & feedstocks stream

2.30 Improving production economics for advanced biofuels • Analysis of cellulosic ethanol costs and revenues • Reducing enzyme costs by selective fractionation of biomass to pure C6, C5 and lignin streams • Profitability of cellulosic sugar and lignin platforms • Case study: results from cellulosic ethanol production facility • Comparison of low-cost cellulosic ethanol feedstocks Pasi Rousu, President, Chempolis Asia & Pacific and Americas, Chempolis

2.30 Greening up Aviation: Advanced Biofuels ready for Take Off • The path towards commercial scale production - Economic viability of jatropha and other bioenergy crops • Value chain integration & logistics • By-product commercialisation • Sustainability challenges • Working towards competitive pricing and refining Dr Christoph Weber, CEO of JatroFuels

3.00 Overcoming the funding shortage • Costs of getting commercial plants up and running Ian O’Gara, Clean Energy Solutions, Accenture

3.00 Standardised analytical solutions for biofuels • Verifying end product quality requirements • Complying with environmental regulations • On-site measurement capabilities • Ready-to-go analytical solutions Latif Aksu, Sales Manager, Agilent Technologies

3.30 Networking break in the exhibition hall

3.30 Networking break in the exhibition hall

4.00 Finance – Roadmap to project debt funding • Early stage development – key issues • Key requirements for bringing a project to financial close • Due diligence process Chris van Niekerk, Associate Director, NIBC

4.00 Feedstock price forecasts for the near and medium term • Analysing the biofuels industry’s feedstock requirements • Taking a closer look at feedstock price volatility & availability • Supply and demand trends across Europe Christophe Cogny, Biofuel and Oilseed Analyst, Tallage

4.30 From Start-up to Company, Early-Stage Venture Capital to Grow Bio-based Industries • Types of project finance available and examples of success • Avoiding risks during the scale-up process Ludwig Goris, Investment Manager, Capricorn Venture Partners

4.30 Jatropha is use in a plant oil cooker – lessons learned • Strengths and weaknesses of the cooker • Future objectives for the technology • Opportunities for growth in Africa Dr Brigitte Bohlinger, JatroSolutions

10.30 Networking break in the exhibition hall 11.00 Latest developments in international standards for biofuels and biomaterials • Sustainability standards under development within ISO, CEN and the voluntary schemes • Development of sustainability schemes for bio-based chemicals • Outlook towards one international standard Ortwin Costenoble, Senior Standardization Consultant, NEN Energy Resources 11.30 European biofuel supply and demand: Current and future challenges • First and second generation production levels so far • Varying interpretations of directives by member states • Biofuel demand levels across Europe James Challinor, Senior Analyst – Downstream Oil Research, Wood Mackenzie 12.00 Biofuels trade: explaining anti-dumping measures and counterveiling duties • Has the EC made the right decisions?

• What further action needs to be taken to protect the European market?

• What are the latest import/export figures • Update on the bioethanol market in Belgium Hendrik Lemahieu, Secretary-General, Belgian Bio-Ethanol Association 12.30 Infrastructure: Can Europe cope with advanced biofuels?

• A closer look at feedstock logistics • What additional infrastructure will be needed?

• The importance of developing synergies between bio-based industries Hendrik-Jan van Engelen, CCO, Port of Ghent 1.00 Lunch in the exhibition hall

5.00 Close of day one Networking reception

Register Online at www.biofuels-news.com/conference

Day two: 12th September 2013 8.50 Opening remarks from the chair: Commercialising advanced biofuels 9.00 Case study: Scaling up and derisking second generation technology • How to secure finance • Running a commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plant • Are Europe’s targets achievable?

Raffaella Serra, Business Development Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, Beta Renewables 9.30 Case study: Producing commercial scale biofuels from MSW • The journey towards commercial scale production • Working with MSW • Advice on raising finance Marie-Hélène Labrie, VP of Government Affairs and Communications, Enerkem 10.00 Case study: scaling up second generation cellulosic ethanol production • Increasing yields by 50% Henrik Maimann, Vice President, Dong Energy 10.30 Networking break 11.00 Case study: Advanced Biofuels From Wood-Based Raw Materials Dr Sari Mannonen, Director, Business Relations & Marketing, UPM Biofuels 11.30 Case study: Making cellulosic ethanol innovations a commercial reality • New innovations production technology and conversion pathways • Case study: commercial scale demonstration of technology • De-risking cellulosic ethanol Christian Koolloos, Business Manager Bioethanol, DSM 12.00 Food Then Fuel: Biodiesel’s Role in Strengthening Food Security • REG’s lower cost feedstock model • Explaining the US Renewable Fuel Standard – what can Europe learn?

• How biodiesel increases profitability for agricultural and food sectors • Future biodiesel growth opportunities Daniel Oh, CEO, Renewable Energy Group 12.30 What will happen beyond 2020?

How do we create the stability the industry needs?

• What impact will would commissions proposal on ILUC have on biofuel markets(5% cap, multiple counting, ILUC factors)?

• Developments in advanced biofuel feedstocks including microbial oils Ilmari Lastikka, Head of EU Affairs, Neste Oil 1.00 Lunch in the exhibition hall

Day Two afternoon Sustainability & ILUC

Benefitting from market synergies

2.20 Opening remarks from the chair: Sustainability & ILUC Kathryn Sheridan, CEO, Sustainability Consult

2.20: Opening remarks from the chair: Benefitting from market synergies

2.30 Double counting – is it the right solution? What are the alternatives?

• Is it a bankable business model?

• The impact on biodiesel from used cooking oil • Experiences of multi counting in different countries across Europe • Discussing the possibility of a dedicated sub-target, how would it work?

Dr Martin Grass, Project Manager / Auditor, Sustainability Certification, Intertek

2.30 From the retailer’s perspective: challenges to commercialising next generation transport energy • Changing customer attitudes • Dealing with technical and infrastructure issues • Regulatory framework to promote development Lars Gaustad, Senior Vice President, Transport Fuel, Statoil Fuel & Retail ASA

3.00 Why do low ILUC biofuels need a policy incentive?

• Explaining the Low indirect impact biofuels (LIIB) certification module • How can LIIB be used in EU biofuels policy and how would it fit into the Commission’s ILUC proposal?

Daan Peters, Senior consultant bioenergy, Ecofys

3.00 Biobuthanol production via process intensification: new challenges • Biothanol as alternative to ethanol • Process intensification to increase productivity • New resources (residues) for biobuthanol production Dr Ludo Diels, Research manager for Sustainable Chemistry, Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO)

3.30 Networking break in the exhibition hall

3.30 Networking break in the exhibition hall

4.00 The argument in favour of mandating ILUC factors • Should be scrap quantity targets for biofuel in transport altogether?

• Sustainability within the FQD -Analysing the latest scientific research • Uneven returns? The economics of EU biofuels policy Pietro Caloprisco, Policy Officer, Transport & Environment

4.00 Improving lignocellulosic biofuel production & a closer look at biobutanol • The latest developments for biobutanol • How to secure additional investment • Improving profitability through biotechnology Dr Gunter Festel, CEO, Butalco

4.30 2G bioethanol production in Abengoa: From R&D towards the first commercial plants • The development of 2G technologies in Abengoa Bioenergy Carmen Millán Chacartegui, Director of Project Promotion and Institutional Relations, Abengoa Bioenergía Nuevas Tecnologías

4.30 Biofuels developments across central and eastern Europe Giorgio Rosso Cicogna, Alternate Secretary General, Central European Initiative

5.00 Close of conference

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biopower news

Northern Ireland ready for Belarus receives huge loan for energy efficient advanced thermal power generation treatment facility Planning permission for an 80,000 tonne clean energy recovery from waste facility in Lisburn, Northern Ireland has been granted by environment minister Alex Attwood.

The advanced conversion facility from Energos at the former Burn House rendering facility will use non-recyclable, nonhazardous mixed waste to generate 7MW of electricity, enough to power 17,000

14 • July/August 2013

homes. It could also provide affordable heat in the form of steam or hot water for local industries and homes.

Around 60% of the electricity generated by the Energos’ gasification process will be renewable energy generated from biomass and will qualify for double Renewables Obligation Certificates from the UK government.

Nick Dawber, Energos MD, says: ‘This is an communitysized solution for local waste that would otherwise fill up landfill sites and emit damaging greenhouse gases.

This facility will provide a boost for the Lisburn area.’l

A loan agreement between the Republic of Belarus and the World Bank has been signed which will see $90 million (€69.5 million) additional financing for energy efficient projects in the country.

The extra financing will cover the reconstruction costs of two combined heat and power (CHP) plants in the cities of Gomel and Mogilev.

Both CHP facilities are expected to add 145MW of

electrical capacity, based on modern gas turbines and engines being installed. When the work is fully complete, the efficiency of the heat and power generation at the sites will double to 30%.

‘The main benefit of the project is the improvement of energy efficiency in heat and power generation, benefitting 120,000 people,’ World Bank task team leader Pekka Salminen was quoted as saying.

This additional finance will be used in conjunction with an original $125 million loan approved in 2009.

The original loan was used to convert six heat-only boiler plants into CHP. l

Bioenergy Insight

biopower news

Klamath Falls Bioenergy backs out of biomass plant Developer Klamath Falls Bioenergy has withdrawn its application to build a biomass-fired power plant near Klamath Falls, Oregon, according to reports.

The company said it would not have been able to meet its construction deadline of the end of 2013 due to delays in obtaining a state siting permit. This deadline was set by federal economic stimulus legislation, which was expected to fund 30% of the project’s cost.

The renewable energy plant would have burned woodchips to generate power for around 35,000 homes. Local residents were displeased with the potential development and had organised to protest against it.

Local economic development leader Trey Senn was reported to have said that the withdrawal means Iberdrola Renewables’ proposed biomass project can now get underway. l

UK energy efficiency project investment received An investment of £10 million (€11.7 million) will be used by energy services company Roundwood Energy and biomass boiler manufacturer Woodpecker Energy to replace inefficient heating systems in the UK. Roundwood, advised by global law firm Bird and Bird, will receive £4.9 million from Energy Saving Investments, in which the UK Green Investment Bank is a cornerstone investor, with the other £5.1 million coming from the Equitix Energy Efficiency Fund.

The investment will allow for the funding of over 60 projects, benefitting a varied mix of public and private sector organisations

including care homes, schools, leisure facilities and local authority projects. In addition to the benefits of driving a green economy and considerably reducing carbon emissions, switching to biomass boilers could save up to 30% on energy bills.

Technology provider Woodpecker, a UK based manufacturer of wood pellet and wood chip biomass boilers, and advisory company BDO will support the delivery of the project.

‘This is a trail blazing deal because it is one of the first to use project finance type structures on relatively small-scale biomass installs,’ says BDO partner Michael Ware. ‘I think it will be the template for major investment into the small biomass space by institutional funders and we are very proud to be associated with it.’ l

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July/August 2013 • 15

biopower news

Nova Scotia biomass power plant finds buyer Emera Energy, an energy subsidiary of Emera, has acquired the biomassfired power plant Brooklyn Power in Nova Scotia, Canada for $25 million (€18.8 million).

The deal, originally announced in December last year, came about following the Nova Scotia government’s decision to buy Renova Scotia Bioenergy (formerly Bowater Mersey Paper) from Resolute Forest Products, including the Brooklyn Energy facility.

Emera then bought the Brooklyn Energy plant after its power purchase agreement with Nova Scotia Power was terminated.

‘We have followed through on the premier’s commitment to keep Brooklyn Power open,

knowing this was good for the region, the employees and Nova Scotia’s forestry industry,’ Graham Steele, economic and rural development and tourism minister, was quoted as saying.

The deal includes the transfer of all company shares and debt and the potential to access land and property owned by Renova, including the pier, wharf and waterline.

It also includes a commitment to buy steam for the province’s bioresource demonstration centre and a fibre supply agreement.

Christopher Clarke, regions of the Queens Municipality mayor, was quoted as saying: ‘The economy of our region was hit hard by the closure of the Bowater mill, and so I’m happy Emera Energy will continue to operate Brooklyn Power.

The facility keeps local people working and maintains an important player in the forestry sector.’ l

Additional investment into UK bioenergy operations PDM Group, a UK food product manufacturer, has revealed it plans to spend over £90 million (€103.2 million) on anaerobic digestion, recycling and food processing facilities over the next 18 months.

In addition to the £44 million investment into AD facilities in Widnes and Dagenham , PDM will spend just shy of £30 million to upgrade its animal by-product rendering operations and £18 million on three pet food processing facilities.

The plant in Widnes will see the addition of three combined heat and power gas generators to produce electricity, while the heat will be used on-site and by nearby businesses.

The Dagenham operation, due to be built later this year, will distribute biogas to either the gas grid or transportation use. l

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Bioenergy Insight

biogas news New AD plant planned for Scotland

New partnership for Middle East biogas project signed A biogas project in Lebanon operated by environmental solutions provider Averda International has attached a technology provider to get it moving forward.

An on-site power facility at a landfill site in Naameh will transform waste into energy via a GE Jenbacher

Bioenergy Insight

Ener-G will build and operate the new plant

and power (CHP) system will be supplied by energy services provider Ener-G and will be able to utilise an MTU

engine. Ener-G will finance, develop, install and operate the biogas generation system.

The council will recover Feed

J312 landfill gas engine.

It has the potential to generate 637kW of renewable electricity and go towards

eliminating the equivalent of 12,400 tonnes of CO2.

The project will be at pilot stage to begin with and expand

The Lebanon biogas plant is progressing

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The AD plant will convert methane extracted from up to 40,000 tonnes of local food and garden waste into up to 1.4MW of renewable electricity and heat. The heat will supply the council’s existing district heating system and has the potential to meet all of the heating needs at the nearby Queen Margaret Hospital.

The plant’s combined heat

in Tariff (FiT) payments on the export of electricity to the local network over the 25 year contract period.

The facility will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 7,200 tonnes per year, the equivalent of taking 2,400 cars off the roads annually.

Chris Ewing, Fife Council’s environmental sustainability manager, says: ‘We believe that turning food and garden waste at Lochhead into power and heat could save the council around £1.2 million (€1.4 million) each year. It will also contribute to our improving recycling rates, which were 55.5% in 2012 for household and commercial waste.’ l

to utilise the whole Naameh site capacity if successful.

‘The Naameh project is a landmark that reflects our focus on adopting environmentally sustainable alternatives and inspiring similar applications for other projects,’ Hani Wazzan, Averda supply chain director, was quoted as saying.

‘The twin challenges of landfill management are being addressed through this collaboration.’ l

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Fife Council is building a new anaerobic digestion facility at Lochhead landfill site in Dunfermline which will begin generating power later this year.

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July/August 2013 • 17

biogas news

Green electricity for recycling plant due in UK UK waste-to-energy BioWayste has signed a six year contract with recycling business Brocklesby to provide green electricity and heat via its anaerobic digestion (AD) technology.

BioWayste will run and manage a £2 million (€2.3 million), 40,000 tonne per year AD plant based on Brocklesby’s seven acre site in Yorkshire. Six reactors, along with combined heat and power engines, will provide Brocklesby with 75%

of its current electricity usage, all generated from waste products currently being tankered from site.

‘Not only will this agreement remove tankers from the local road infrastructure, it’ll reduce our reliance on fossil fuels by making green energy from waste on our own site,’ says Brocklesby MD Rob Brocklesby.

‘By working with other partners, including the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water, we also aim to provide a fully automated and controlled service using locally trained operatives and management,’ adds Biowayste sales manager David Orme. l

Biogas plan for Canadian zoo receives feed-in tariff boost A Canadian biogas producer can move forward with building a facility after receiving a feed-in tariff contract.

The Ontario Power Authority has issued the contract meaning ZooShare Biogas Co-Operative (ZBC) can push on with plans to build a 500kW biogas plant at Toronto Zoo next year.

ZBC is funding the project through the sale of bonds to Ontarians who want to aid the environment, support the zoo and potentially make a return on investment. The bonds reportedly pay 7% for seven years but interested parties must be a co-op member to be eligible.

The plant will produce renewable electricity from on-site food waste and animal manure. l

Biogas research gets green light in Pakistan A university in Pakistan is to delve into the world of biogas research by setting up a dedicated centre on campus.

The Biogas Resource Centre will sit within the Ravi Campus Pattoki of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Lahore to train

and facilitate those working in the field of renewable energy.

University vice-chancellor Talat Naseer Pasha, in an address regarding the new facility, believes the 57 million cattle that inhabit Pakistan could provide enough waste to produce energy at both community and larger scale levels.

It has also been announced a 25m3 capacity biogas digester will be built on the campus in due course. l

African biogas Moldovan sugar producer to programme to spend big incorporate biogas facility It has been reported the Tanzania domestic Biogas Programme (TDBP) is to spend $21 million (€16.1 million) to create an infrastructure supporting new 50 enterprises.

In a statement TDBP said the project is being worked with the Centre for Agriculture Mechanisation and Rural Technology and is a component of the Africa Biogas Partnership Programme, funded by the Netherlands government.

TDBP began in 2009 and will be in effect until at least 2015, having overseen the construction of 6,000 biogas systems to date.

‘Over 12,000 biogas plants are expected to be constructed through us,’ TDBP co-ordinator Lehand Shilla was quoted as saying. ‘We expect more countries to benefit other than Tanzania, including Uganda, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.’ l

18 • July/August 2013

A new facility scheduled for operation in September will use sugar beet pulp to produce biogas in Moldova.

Südzucker Moldova, a sugar producing company, will house the new bioenergy facility at its sugar factory in Drochia to allow for ‘maximum use of waste resulting from the extraction of sugar from beets, which will be converted to “green” and organic fertilisers’.

The biogas plant will be constructed by a company based in the Czech Republic, starting soon. To this end, during its last season, Südzucker has prepared around four tonnes of brewing and distilling feedstock from pressed sugar beet and stored it in specially dug canals on-site.

The annual processing capacity is designed to produce around 7.3 million m3 of biogas, produced from 55,000 tonnes of feedstock.

Südzucker says, for the first two years of operation, the facility will only process compressed sugar beet waste, before all organic waste resulting from its processes can theoretically be encompassed. The resultant heat and power will go back into powering the sugar facility.

Südzucker placed the project budget in excess of €8 million ($10.4 million). l

Bioenergy Insight

biogas news

New Ottawa plant converts landfill gas into energy

Australian abattoir to beef up its biogas proposition An Australian abattoir is to build a multi-million biogas system to help reduce its reliance on coal.

Bindaree Beef, based in New South Wales, will see the AU$43 million (€30.4 million) system reduce its carbon emissions by 95% while cutting utility costs of processing its cattle by over a third. The project involves installing a more energy efficient rendering plant and processing all organic waste through a digester.

‘The biogas system will be a win for the environment and it also makes the company more competitive,’

Bioenergy Insight

Moose Creek Energy’s landfill gas-to-energy plant was officially opened in June by energy minister Bob Chiarelli.

Australian Bindaree Beef is installing a biogas plant

Bindaree spokesperson Kerry Newton was quoted as saying. ‘This type of technology has been used in other industries before but this is the first time in the world that it has been used in the meat industry.’

The owners of Bindaree have reportedly spent $2 million of their own money researching and developing the project. If successful, the company will no longer be liable to pay the carbon price, which is estimated to save it $2.4 million a year. l

The 4.2MW plant is located in Moose Creek, Ontario at the Lafleche Environmental facility.

Moose Creek Energy is a joint venture between Energy Ottawa, a subsidiary of Hydro Ottawa, and Integrated Gas Recovery Services.

The facility at Moose Creek will generate enough electricity to benefit 4,000 households, while at the same time slashing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100,000 tonnes.

‘This partnership is a win-win scenario’, explains Bryce Conrad, president and CEO of Hydro Ottawa.

‘We’re turning a negative into a positive by harnessing landfill gas as a green energy source to power homes and businesses, while diverting greenhouse gas emissions in the process.’ l

July/August 2013 • 19

biogas news

New report distills UK anaerobic digestion industry The UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) has published its first market report on anaerobic digestion.

The report, the first of its kind, gives an overview of the issues facing the market and identifies the opportunities and barriers regarding investment. The key findings are detailed below: The sector is a growing opportunity: There was 106MWe of capacity installed or in construction by 2012, more than double that in 2010. An additional 148MWe of specific capacity has been identified as potentially available to be developed.

It is a fragmented, young market: The top five operators account for less than 28% of the market, which compares to 71% in the offshore wind sector. The majority of AD facilities in the UK have been in operation for less than three years. This presents a funding challenge for the sector, as it lacks an established and informed investor community.

Wide ranging performance factors: There is a marked divergence in operational performance between different facilities.

Critical factors to project success: The main barriers to growth in the sector are: a) Feedstock selectivity b) Deep understanding of, and access to local markets for digestate c) Dedicated operating personnel d) Active process management.

Financing: The identified development pipeline requires capital investment of approximately £650 million (€760 million). Although the AD market has indicated that it is in need of debt funding, equity may be more appropriate in many cases due to the youth of the market.

GIB states UK government research has indicated that AD could deliver between 3 and 5TWh of electricity by 2020.

‘AD is rightly at the heart of the government’s waste policies, and GIB’s waste investment strategy,’ says Adrian Judge, GIB MD for waste and bioenergy. ‘Although the UK market is still young, and there are challenges for projects in delivering a consistent revenue stream, well operated AD facilities have the potential to achieve attractive commercial rates of return to both equity and debt providers.’

The findings of the report will be used to inform GIB’s strategy on the potential for debt investment in the AD sector as it is investigating the opportunity to directly participate in up to £50 million of debt financing for AD projects. l

Biogas system to light up Ghana

Accra in Ghana is to start powering lighting systems via biogas according to local news reports.

The project is set to use treated human waste at the Tipping Station Worte ground via a $5 million (€3.8 million) waste treatment plant from Scamson Ghana.

‘This project can also commercialise the products of faecal sludge, including pumping back recycled treated water for domestic and agricultural use,’ Scamson CEO Fredrick Sunesson was quoted as saying.

The project may potentially recycle human waste sludge into compost which would eliminate dumping of faecal sludge into open landfill, increasing expertise in sewage management. l

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Bioenergy Insight

biogas news

SaniGreen to build $30m biogas plant in Minnesota SaniGreen Bioenergy, a joint venture between Canada-based Sanimax and Wisconsin’s Green Energy Partners, is developing a $30 million (€22.9 million) biogas plant in South Saint Paul, Minnesota.

The company is expected to break ground on the plant later this year, with completion scheduled for March 2015.

The anaerobic digester will be able to process 150,000 tonnes of solid and liquid waste annually, collected from nearby schools and businesses. Some of the renewable energy generated will be used to fuel a 1.1MW generator which will power the plant.

It will be built close to Sanimax’s existing rendering facility and Xcel Energy’s centre for electricity and natural gas distribution. l

New biogas plant in Germany up and running A new biogas plant in Germany has been commissioned and has been supplying to the public grid since May.

The Weltec Biopwer facility, based in the industrial region of Altmark, took eight months to construct and consists of four digesters, six digestate storage units and a liquid reservoir. It produces 1,650m3 of raw biogas an hour, 250m3 exclusively for the heating needs of the plant itself.

The rest of the biogas is converted, via chemical amine treatment, into 700m3 of processed biomethane an hour. This amount can supply 5,000 homes with heat and power. It uses feedstocks including maize silage, dry chicken dung and sugar beets.

‘This refinery demonstrates that we must provide the right answer to the growing demand for biomethane for the various utilisation paths,’ Jens Albartus, director of Weltec Biopower, was quoted as saying. l

News in brief Waste to energy project gets financial backing in US

Israel-based waste to energy company Blue Sphere has secured financing for a project to be located in the US. The business has received commitment from Caterpillar Financial Services in Tennessee to provide almost $18 million (€13.7 million) in debt financing.

The project, in collaboration with Germany-based Biogas Nord, will see a 5.2MW anaerobic digester located in North Carolina which Blue Sphere hopes to complete by the third quarter of 2014.

Biogas project underway in Zambia Home owners in Solwezi, Zambia will be

connected to biogas stoves thanks to a project run by the Devolution Trust Fund (DTF).

DTF will connect 120 households through the NorthWestern Water and Sewerage company at a cost of KR2.2 million (€307,850). It has built five biogas units, a decentralised wastewater treatment plant and sewer network to connect the project.

The DTF is also targeting good sanitation for 30,000 households by 2014 and 80,000 by 2015.

Biogas project set after joint venture in Malaysia

A division of Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby has signed a pact with state-run power producer Tenaga Nasional (TNB) to establish a joint venture that will generate power from agricultural waste.

Sime Darby Plantation will hold a 51% equity stake in the proposed joint venture, and the remainder will be held by TNB Energy Services.

The proposed joint venture, which is currently subject to shareholders’ and other regulatory approvals, will be named Sime Darby TNBES Renewable Energy.

The company will produce biogas from palm oil mill effluent to power facilities at Sime Darby’s Flemington and Hadapan estates, plus also feed excess electricity to the national grid.

Long-term biogas project in Nepal begins

A biogas boiler has been installed at the Alternative

Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) in Lalitpur, Nepal as it aims to encourage local renewable energy consumption.

The gas produced by the 1m3 capacity facility will power the centre’s canteen for two hours a day via household waste feedstock.

Govindraj Pokhrel, AEPC executive director, was quoted as saying he hopes the town will eventually reduce its dependency on liquid petroleum gas while managing waste level through similar projects.

Nearly half of the Rs 25,000 (€320) needed to install the boiler came from a government grant and AEPC has a target to install 500 similar boilers this fiscal year.

Rounded off: Weltec built the new plant in Altmark

Bioenergy Insight

July/August 2013 • 21

biopellet news Scotia Atlantic Biomass signs marketing agreement for pellets Ekman, a forestry trading company, is Scotia Atlantic Biomass’ worldwide agent for the marketing of its entire wood pellet production after the two companies entered into an agreement. Scotia Atlantic Biomass is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian alternative energy company Viridis Energy.

The agreement covers an initial period of 24 months and an aggregate projected wood pellet production of up to 240,000 tonnes.

Boiler project part of local clean energy drive in US

Viridis Energy CEO Christopher Robertson comments: ‘The reopening of the Scotia operations is a significant accomplishment towards achieving our goal of a 1 million tonne capacity.’

Viridis acquired Scotia, which is one of Canada’s largest wood pellet manufacturers, in 2012.

The company is expected to begin production within the coming weeks following several months of refurbishments and calibrating operations.

Scotia is strategically placed to supply wood pellets to Europe due to its close proximity to shipping ports. Demand for renewable energy sources in Europe is fast growing. l Scotia Atlantic hopes to produce 1 million tonnes per year of pellets

Wood pellet firm sells ‘substantial’ stake US wood pellet and grill manufacturer Traeger Pellet Grills (TPG) has sold part of its business to private equity firm Trilantic Capital Partners (TCP).

A wood pellet boiler project is set to benefit residents of an apartment building in New Hampshire, US.

TPG reportedly called the sale a ‘substantial minority interest’ while New York-based TCP says it ‘saw potential in Traeger for expansion’. That thought follows the installation of Traeger-branded shops into shopping centres.

TPG operates three pellet mills each based in Oregon, which is also home to its headquarters, Iowa and Georgia. l

The Berlin Housing Authorityowned complex aims to save around $11,000 (€8,500) a year once the boilers are in place. It also hopes to add water conversion features, programme thermostats and upgrade its hot water system too.

This is part of an overall movement, called the Berlin Model Neighbourhood Project, which wants to shift the region away from imported oil dependence.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen was quoted as commending the house authority on the move, saying it was ‘leading the way in local energy efficiency’. l

New biomass facility slated for US

22 • July/August 2013

A new multi-million dollar wood pellet plant has been tentatively announced for Mississippi, US. The $115 million (€88.1 million) facility is slated to be housed at George County industrial park and will aim to produce around 500,000

tonnes of pellets a year. That figure is according to management from Florida-based Green Circle Bioenergy, the company attached to the project.

Construction is pencilled in for this autumn and expected to be operational by the spring of 2015.

Green Circle is owned by Sweden-based private investment company JCE Group. l

Bioenergy Insight

biopellet news

Japan remains world’s largest importer of woodchips The global trade of woodchips has grown year on year from 2000 to 2011, the Wood Resource Quarterly reports.

This is with the exception of 2009 when pulp production fell around 10% and the demand for wood fibre was down.

From 2009-2012 woodchip imports reached just over 31 million tonnes, a 6.5 million increase. According to the report, much of this can be attributed to major investments in pulp capacity in China and increased production of MDF in Turkey.

In terms of the major chip importing countries, Japan remains the largest, although volumes have dropped from 15 million tonnes in 2008 to 11 million tonnes in 2012. China is today the world’s second largest importer.

Both Japan and China are the two key consumers of globally traded chips and in 2012 they imported 83% of the world’s total imports of hardwood chips.

Finland is the third largest chip

Japan imported 11 million tonnes of woodchips last year

importer, sourcing much of its capacity from Russia and the Baltic States. The fourth largest chip importer is Turkey.

‘It is likely that global trade of woodchips will continue to go up in the coming years for two main reasons: 1) there are limited forest resources

in some of the countries which are expanding industry capacity, and 2) some forest companies are making the strategic decision to diversify their supply sources and import woodchips rather than procure marginal fibre supplies locally,’ the report concludes. l

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Bioenergy Insight

www.williamscrusher.com July/August 2013 • 23

biopellet news

New grant windfall will increase pellet production in Vermont Vermont Wood Pellet, a US-based pellet producer, has won a share of a $750,000 (€572,500) grant provided by the Working Lands Enterprise Fund.

The company has said its $38,153 windfall will be spent on upgrading its equipment to increase production output and overall efficiency by reducing the amount of waste made during the process.

Its facility turned out 15,500 tonnes of hardwood pellets last year.

‘We hope to now get that figure up to 16,000 for the next season,’ Vermont Wood co-owner Chris Brooks was quoted as saying. ‘By ramping up production to capacity, we could even start to consider opening up another facility in the future too.’ l

Wood pellet facility in Russia to help protect profits Sweden-based forestry company RusForest is set to work with AS Hekotek, a mechanical engineering company, to build a wood pellet production facility at its sawmill in Arkhangelsk, Russia.

The facility will have an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes and allow RusForest to monetise its sawmill by-products by exporting

wood pellets to Europe.

Total investment is estimated to be approximately €10 million ($13.2 million), with around 70% expected to be financed by local bank facilities. It has been reported the Arkhangelsk region is suffering financial difficulties within its pulp sector and RusForest’s sawmill residual revenues are at risk.

‘This investment is crucial to make our Arkhangelsk sawmill profitable,’ says COO Anton Bogdanov. ‘A pellet facility will help insulate our operations from the financial situation of the local pulp mills.’ l

Biomass project in US receives agreement A lease agreement has been agreed by the North Carolina State Ports Authority with the council state to enter the wood pellet industry.

The agreement between the authority and Enviva Holdings will see Enviva build a pellet export facility at the Port of Wilmington capable of receiving, storing and load wood-based products for European consumption.

The facility will take around 18 months to complete but an operational deadline of January 2015 has been set by state officials. It is believed investment by Enviva for construction is around $35 million (€26.6

million) and an initial 21year lease has been agreed.

Experts at North Carolina university expect US production of wood pellets to increase from 3 million tonnes in 2009 to almost 10 million tonnes in 2015. l

Northern Europe wood exports flying high A new report pertaining to wood markets states many sawmills in northern Europe have expanded their lumber sales outside of the European market over the past few years.

The resultant increase in nonEuropean exports from Nordic countries went from 27% of total exports in 2007 to 43% in 2012. The biggest changes have come within shipments to Northern Africa, the Middle East, Japan, China and the US. Finnish sawmills currently export over half of their

24 • July/August 2013

shipments to non-European markets, with Japan and Egypt being the two largest buyers last year, ahead of traditional markets like the UK, France and Germany.

Countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa have become an important region for Swedish sawmills over the past 10 years too, with the export value increasing from $160 million (€121 million) in 2002 to $730 million in 2012. Those regions accounted for 28% of the total export volume for Sweden last year.

The Wood Resources International report also reveals, although still relatively small in size, shipments from Sweden during the first four months of 2013 to China were up 130%. l

Non-European exports from Nordic countries are on the up

Bioenergy Insight

xx Bioenergy

technology news Nov Mono technology helps improve biogas production efficiency Pump designer and manufacturer Nov Mono has installed one of its pumps at the wastewater treatment plant Karanlage Plön in Germany to transfer sewage sludge to an anaerobic digester where it is used to create biogas.

The EZstrip maintain-in-place, progressing cavity transfer pump was chosen mainly due to its ability to reduce a maintenance operation down to one hour. Operating

at a duty speed of 294 rpm, the pump transfers the sludge at a rate of 15m3 per hour, and lifts it 18m into the digester.

The EZstrip technology allows the pump to be disassembled without the need to remove other equipment or associated pipework. The pump can be installed into new plants or retrofitted into existing Nov Mono installations. No electrical disconnection is required and suction and discharge pipes remain untouched.

Available in cast iron or stainless steel and with a choice of rotor and stator materials, the EZstrip transfer pumps can be maintained with minimal equipment. l

Imtech awarded £6m contract for new gas-to-grid plant Severn Trent Water is building a gas-to-grid plant, expected to be the largest fully commercial facility of its kind in the UK, and has awarded the £6.4 million (€7.4 million) construction contract to Imtech Waste, Water and Energy.

Imtech says it has worked closely with the client in the lead up to the contract win,

ensuring its plans match the client’s requirements, including specifying a technology package from Malmberg. Laing O’Rourke will complete the civil work.

The project will run for 60 weeks and, once completed, will enable Severn Trent Water to purify up to 1500m3/hr of biogas produced at its sewage treatment works. This will be injected into the national grid. This project has become financially viable following the recent introduction of the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive scheme. l

Imtech was awarded the contract to build Severn Trent’s facility

Bioenergy Insight

Nov Mono hard at work installing an EZstrip

Clearsign announces agreement with waste energy services company ClearSign Combustion, a manufacturer of combustion and emissions control technology has executed a letter of intent to enter into a multi-phase commercial development agreement with a waste and energy services company.

Phase one of the anticipated three-phase agreement is expected to begin soon, with testing in ClearSign’s Seattle, US combustion test facility, with an early on-site beta to follow at an international facility. Subsequent phases would include full-scale testing and evaluation at a larger US-based facility.

Additional contract details will be disclosed upon execution of the definitive agreement.

The waste-to-energy market is large and growing rapidly. According to QDM Associates, the global waste-to-energy market almost doubled from $4.8 billion (€3.6 billion) in 2006 to over $8.5 billion today. It projects that this growth will continue to accelerate, expanding to over $27 billion by 2021. Currently, the world generates more than 2.1 billion tonnes of waste each year (representing 24.5 quadrillion Btu of energy) of which just over 10%, or 225 million tonnes is used to produce energy today. l

July/August 2013 • 25

technology news

3D non-contact level scanner for bulk solids Flow instrumentation company Allison Engineering has launched a 3D scanner for bulk solids silos.

The ATEX-certified APM RL 2000 provides real level measurement based on multiple readings. It provides non-contact, dust penetrating level measurement for demanding environments, including biomass materials, and is particularly effective on tall, narrow silos where conventional level technologies fail.

The RL 2000 utilises three-headed, low frequency (2.7 kHz) transducers which scan the stored product profile to provide operators with a 3D map of the silo. This information helps operators to identify both the total inventory and also the product profile which ultimately contributes towards production improved efficiencies and cost savings in stock control.

Allison is offering the RL 2000, which it says is competitive with other high specification (and higher cost) radarbased devices, on a free-trial basis. l

Allison’s APM RL 2000 3D scanner for storage silos

New biogas contract signed in UK UK-based renewable power plant business Clarke Energy is to supply Tamar Energy with combined heat and power systems for their biogas plants.

Clarke will initially provide six biogas engines across four Tamar sites in the UK, with a combined

renewable power output of 8MWe. The agreement comes after the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and Department for Energy Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) recently presented an Anaerobic Digestion Strategy and Action Plan.

It outlines a road map for increasing energy from waste through anaerobic digestion, with a target of supporting

up to 3 to 5TWh of electricity from anaerobic digestion by 2020.

Dan Poulson, engineering and strategy director of Tamar Energy, says: ‘Our plans are to develop a network of anaerobic digestion plants across the UK in order to help meet the country’s renewable energy targets. Clarke’s technical solution was a key factor in us awarding these orders.’ l

New horizontal grinders announced Bandit Industries has expanded its range of recyclers and horizontal grinders with a new XP-Series.

Model 2680XP, 3680XP and 4680XP Beast Recyclers now feature angled font infeeds with larger infeed drive chains. Track Beasts include height-adjustable pans for adjusting feed angle. A new rail system on the return side of the infeed replaces the roller system, reducing load on the tail shaft. These machines also offer a new ‘Big Mouth’ option that increases the height of the opening into the mill. An extra-large 32” diameter feed wheel is optional and includes a brush deflector to better direct material into the machine.

Changes continue inside the mill housing. Base door openings are now larger for easier removal of the cuttermill. Replaceable wear plates are now standard on the left side (radiator side) of the mill base, and optional on both sides. A convenient trap door

26 • July/August 2013

allows for cleaning in the auger area, while the auger itself is redesigned and easier to change.

Several new teeth styles are also available, and they are subjected to a new proprietary strengthening process delivering longer tooth life. Two-inch wide sizes are available for most teeth, allowing operators to run a 30-tooth setup. New teeth mounts are now compatible with knife cutter bodies, eliminating the need to change The Beast from Bandit cutter bodies when switching between chipping and grinding.

Freeze-hardened teeth, screens redesigned fuel tanks on track machines, and wear items are also optional. A with increased fuel capacity on the Model new chipping drum is also available.

1680XP. Warning lights for clutch and For engines, adjustable pitch fans engine operation are relocated for easier are now standard. Mill shafts are monitoring. On-board air compressors larger on the 1680XP and 2680XP are repositioned for more convenient models to accommodate higher operation, and upgraded impact horsepower engines, which are now wrenches are standard. An over-band available for these machines. magnet is optional and recommended Convenience options include for both shingle and pallet grinding. l

Bioenergy Insight

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UPM Biofuels Regional focus: biofuels in southeast Asia and Australasia Regional focus: biofuels in Europe FC_Biofuels_November_2012.indd 1

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July/August 2013 • 27

technology news

Energy tycoon increases stake in Kirk Group

New biogas facility aids renewable power in UK

Green Energy tycoon Simon Rigby has increased his stake in biogas storage solution provider Kirk Group to 66.6%, becoming the largest shareholder.

Global technology provider Clarke Energy has assisted waste management business Agrivert to produce renewable energy in Oxfordshire, UK.

Simon Rigby initially invested in the company in 2011, with a stake of 33.3% with an investment of £2 million (€2.3 million), providing a boost to the business.

Prior to completion of Rigby’s increased investment, Kirk Group secured a significant contract in the AD industry in South East Asia. The £2 million contract will see Kirk deliver five 7,000m³ digesters with BioDome roofs and five smaller storage tanks on a biogas project in Indonesia.

Rigby’s portfolio also includes energy specialists LG Energy Group,Farmgen and a range of companies throughout the healthcare, procurement and travel sector. He sold his stake in Spice PLC in 2010, forming the GreenGen group. l

Agrivert’s anaerobic digestion facility in Wallingford, Oxfordshire processes food waste collected from Oxfordshire County Council and other local sources to produce biogas used in a CHP plant, achieving fuel efficiency in excess of 84%.

The anaerobic digestion facility is built to treat 45,000 tonnes of feedstock per year to create enough renewable electricity to power 6,000 average UK homes. Its engines are capable of producing a combined energy output of 4.7MW, split between 2.4MW electricity and 2.3MW heat. l

Fault Current awarded grant from DECC TerraSource Fault Current (FC) has been Global awarded a £635,000 (€730,000) grant from the Department of relocates Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Moscow office The DECC Energy Entrepreneurs Fund grant will enable FC to develop and test its next generation fault current limiter for sale to distribution network operators and renewable energy generators.

FC has devised a magnetic fault current limiter design that protects utility electrical distribution networks from unanticipated power surges.

The need for fault current limiters is driven by an increase in electrical power system fault current levels as energy demand increases and more clean energy sources are added to an ageing and already overburdened

national electrical infrastructure.

Deployed in an electrical network substation, a fault current limiter is a smart grid system component that can help protect the grid by absorbing the destructive nature of faults, extending the life of existing network equipment and allowing utilities to defer or eliminate costly equipment replacements or upgrades. Estimates from Europe and the US suggest investing in smart grid technologies, such as fault current limiters, can save billions of dollars in replacement costs, increase safety, reliability and power quality.

Unlike competing faults current limiters in service, FC’s solution is designed to be a passive, ‘fit and forget’ permanent magnet device that requires no external power or back-up, recovers automatically when a fault is cleared and requires minimal maintenance. l

Rayco horizontal grinder is now self-propelled Rayco’s grinder is now available in a selfpropelled version.

The RH1754 horizontal grinder rides on a heavy-duty, steel track undercarriage, making

28 • July/August 2013

it easier to move the machine around job sites and perform tasks such as windrowing material or sorting material into different piles.

The 240 hp, RH1754240 on tracks weighs just 20,500lbs. (9,298 kg) and is

just under 8ft.wide, to avoid permits when trailering.

A wireless radio remote operates each track independently, to provide precise control and two speed final drives allow for creep speed or high speed travel. l

TerraSource Global CIS, a supplier of material processing and handling equipment, has relocated its Moscow, Russia offices to a new space, which will be shared with its sister companies Coperion and Rotex, with more space for expansion if required.

TerraSource, Coperion and Rotex are all wholly owned subsidiaries of Hillenbrand.

In addition to the new space, TerraSource Global is also increasing sales and staff support, including an office manager and sales personnel. l

Bioenergy Insight

technology news

4B launches new heavy Biomass residue project duty elevator bucket line aims to transform 4B Braime Elevator Components, a life in rural India manufacturer of material handling and A new renewable energy technology which aims to help eradicate the problem of open field burning in India has been unveiled.

The new Jumbo CC-S bucket offers greater carrying capacity, along with durability and wear resistance.

It has a thick front lip, front corners and walls for extended life and comes in six sizes ranging from 14x8 to 24x8 with additional sizes pending.

It also incorporates the Iceberg Edge front wear lip and tapered bottom which ensures efficient bucket fill and discharge, especially in low-profile configurations.

This design allows the buckets to nest inside one another, delivering transport cost savings and storage efficiencies. l

The technology, a Pyroformer container, has been developed by scientists at the European Bioenergy Research Institute (EBRI) at Aston University, UK as part of a collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar.

It is believed farmers throughout India burn millions of tonnes of crop residue

every year so a project based in the Punjab region of India called EnergyHarvest has taken agricultural waste left over from the harvests, such as rice and wheat straw, and using Pyroformer to heat them in controlled conditions.

The process generates oil, gas and biochar, all of which has a value when put to use rather than simply being burnt.

‘Open field burning is an enormous problem for India and I hope this project will provide a socially and economically viable solution for farming communities, not only in the Punjab but for the rest of the country,’ says IIT Ropar director M K Surappa. l

C ni Live PD ng d -a & em cc fin o red an ns it ce tra ed ad tio vic ns e cli n

ics

electronic components, has designed an ultra-heavy duty elevator bucket line intended for the most severe agroindustrial uses, such as port and river terminals, ethanol and fertiliser plants, or frac sand and aggregate operations.

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1

July/August19/07/2013 2013 •16:08 29

Bioenergy incident update A summary of the recent major explosions, fires and leaks in the bioenergy industry Date

Location

Company

Incident information

18/07/13

Shakopee Minnesota, US

Koda Energy

Koda Energy’s biomass-fired heat and power plant in Shakopee is being rebuilt after a fire destroyed two of its silos earlier this year.

The old, damaged facility was shut down following the blaze on 25 April and demolished on 18 July. The new plant will feature a horizontal system inside a two-storey unloading and storage building. This will be linked to the existing fuel processing facility.

The project manager for this build, expected to cost $7 million (€5.3 million), will be Greystone Construction. Upon completion the new plant will be able to handle a variety of biomass materials, including woodchips, oat hulls, malt byproducts, sawdust and ground-up wood pallets.

Ground will break in November this year. The new plant is expected to be up and running by the beginning of 2014.

17/07/13

Athens, Georgia, US

Maine Wood Pellets Co.

A fire broke out at Maine Wood Pellets Co.’s facility at around 3am.

Nobody was injured but the fire destroyed a sawdust shed.

Around 25 fire fighters from several emergency crews – including Athens, Cornville, Harmony, Madison and Skowhegan – came to the scene and remained there for about 2.5 hours.

This is not the first fire to have occurred at the company’s mill: one broke out in April earlier this year and other, minor fires have been reported in the past.

Maine Wood Pellet is reportedly working to improve safety at the site and has recently installed new fire protection equipment.

12/06/13

Bangkok, Thailand

Plan Eco Energy

Two people died while trying to rescue people caught in a gas leak at an under construction biomass power plant in Bangkok.

The two men, a New Zealand engineer and a local employee, tried to save a husband and wife who had passed out in a three-storey ventilation chimney after inhaling toxic gas. Unfortunately neither returned after venturing into the structure, but the couple were rescued by other workers.

Police rushed to the scene at the Plan Eco Energy construction site, next to Para Veneer 2002 – a subsidiary of rubber wood toy producer Plan Creations.

Plan Creations began building the biomass plant, which would use leftover rubber sawdust and tree roots to fuel a 5MW power generator, to supply its own electricity needs while selling the excess to a local authority.

The police investigation is on-going.

30 • July/August 2013

Bioenergy Insight

green page Bright future for alternative ‘black’ biomass crop Researchers from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) at the University of Illinois (UI), US are evaluating the biomass potential of woody crops and taking a close look at the Robinia pseudoacacia tree — otherwise known as the black locust.

According to UI associate professor of crop sciences Gary Kling, it has been displaying a higher yield and a faster harvest time than other woody plant species evaluated.

‘For now the only thing you can do with it is for direct combustion,’ Kling was quoted as saying. ‘But if it becomes a major crop other researchers could start working on the process of how to break it down.’

The EBI is working on

Great potential: the black locust tree is showing high yields and fast harvest times

how to get the sugars out of plants and turn those to alcohols, but Kling says it is ‘a very tough thing to do, but our plan is to be able to take anything we grow and convert it into a drop-in fuel’.

Other researchers in the programme have evaluated miscanthus, switchgrass and prairie cord grass, while Kling and his team

Pay attention at the back!

Even when somebody is a qualified teacher, they never seem to stop learning new things and we don’t just mean the latest slang used by their pupils.

In the US, a group of 10 high school teachers recently attended the Bryce Thompson Institute for Plant Research and Cornell to learn all about bioenergy and bioproducts for one week.

Participation was funded by the US Department of Agriculture and focuses on bioenergy and bioproduct systems in use or development.

The teachers learn how each system can meet growing national energy demands through tours, lectures, activities and workshops.

Follow-up material and support is then offered so the teachers can confidently implement concepts and discussion into their classrooms.

As renewable energy will no doubt be a topic future generations will have to grapple with, Bioenergy Insight thinks an early introduction is no bad thing! l

Bioenergy Insight

is examining which shortrotation woody crops grow best in the Midwest.

‘Robinia pseudoacacia is showing great potential as a biomass crop for Midwestern

energy production, outyielding the next closest species nearly three-fold,’ Kling adds. ‘Other crops may catch up, but black locust was the fastest out of the gate.’ l

Top BI Tweets Here is a selection of interesting things from our Twitterverse! (#bioenergyinfo) BusinessGreen US fracking industry wasting $1 billion a year in gas flaring ES KTN Half of recycled waste could have been reused instead!

BTEC ‫‏‬ A better RFS would displace more fossil fuels through including biomass thermal fuels FPInnovations Did you know that there is a link between wood and human health?

Biogas Maxx ‫‏‬ Urban agriculture could produce up to 50% of our food by 2050. Some of such projects involve already biogas tech Eric Kingsley ‫‏‬Carlton Owen at PFI13 - We need to unify the forest products industry, what we have in common is far more important than what seperates

July/August 2013 • 31

Bioenergy regulations

Court rejects EPA rule for biomass industry

A

US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel recently overturned a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule which gave biomass burning facilities an easy ride complying with federal greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards.

The three judges on the panel found that the EPA had failed to justify its decision from 2011 which provided a three-year exemption to its GHG rules for facilities that burn various materials, including wood and algae.

Back then the EPA issued a rule that would exempt power plants and other industrial sites that use biomass because, at the time, it said it needed to further analyse the emissions and figure out how to shape rules to govern when facilities need permits before construction or modification.

Some industry players were unsure about some claims, like wood burning biomass facilities having a neutral CO2 impact because trees absorb the heat-trapping gas before being cut down.

Many environmentalists were not impressed with the approach either. The Centre for Biological Diversity, which filed the suit against the EPA, believes a ‘blanket exemption’ violated the agency’s greenhouse gas policies.

The court sided with the environmental group via a vote of 2-1, finding among other things that the EPA failed to explain what the next steps might

32 • July/August 2013

The EPA’s ruling on biomass burning facilities has been overturned

be for regulating biomass facilities under the Clean Air Act, which might justify a delay in that rulemaking.

‘We simply have no idea what the EPA believes constitutes full compliance with the statute,’ the judges

for biomass pollution was quite obviously a political one but this court decision rightly found that the administration broke the law’.

But, as one of the supporters of the EPA’s research, the National

Many environmentalists were not impressed with the approach either said upon the decision. ‘In other words, the deferral rule is one step towards ... what?

Without a clear answer to that question, the EPA has no basis for invoking the onestep-at-a-time doctrine.’

Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, was quoted as saying the EPA’s move to ‘cut a special break

Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) takes a different stance.

‘The EPA did the right thing by deferring the regulations while it reconsiders whether forest bioenergy should be regulated the same as fossil fuel energy. Forest owners also did the right thing by defending the EPA’s action

in court,’ says Dave Tenny, NAFO president. ‘Now the priority is for the EPA to complete its amendments to the Tailoring Rule to fully recognise the carbon benefits of forest bioenergy and to do it promptly. The urgency of the situation has now increased significantly.’

Biomass Power Association CEO Bob Cleaves backs up the thought that industry needs some certainty moving forwards from this.

‘The industry wants a simple, streamlined approach for GHG emissions from biogenic sources — emissions that regulators throughout the world have deemed fundamentally different from fossil sources,’ he says. ‘Our industry needs regulatory certainty so that biomass resources can be utilised to their fullest extent.’ l

Bioenergy Insight

regulations Bioenergy

New York State furthers green credentials

T

he New York State Assembly and Senate recently passed legislation setting a new standard for all heating oil sold in the state by requiring it to contain at least 2% biodiesel (B2) by 2015.

The legislation calls for all heating oil sold in the City of New York, Suffolk, Nassau, Rockland and Westchester counties to contain at least 2% biodiesel by 1 October 2014, and then all heating oil sold state-wide to meet this standard by 1 July 2015.

The legislation was greeted with support from many industry and environmental groups as this bioheat source will reduce air emissions and create jobs throughout the US’s largest heating oil market. It was supported by, among others, the City of New York and the Mayor’s Office, NYC Citywide Administrative Services, the Environmental Defence Fund, the American Lung Association in New York and United Metro Energy.

‘The country’s advanced biofuel and bioheat are a great fit for New York’s heating oil market,’ says Shelby Neal, director of state governmental

Bioenergy Insight

affairs at the National Biodiesel Board. ‘Creating a standard that includes at least 2% biodiesel will replace about 30 million gallons of petroleum annually with a cleaner burning, renewable fuel.’

Biodiesel was the first alternative fuel to reach 1 billion gallons of

avenue of business for the state’s soyabean oil.

It is believed New York City is the largest municipal consumer of heating oil in the US and is well versed in B2 use already after implementing it last October.

‘We consume 1 billion gallons of heating oil annually, more

Creating a standard that includes at least 2% biodiesel will replace about 30 million gallons of petroleum annually annual production as a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved advanced biofuel. It is produced across the country from agricultural co- and by-products like animal fats, soyabean oil and recycled cooking oil.

The news buoyed the New York Corn and Soyabean Association as it claims ‘the state’s crop farmers are growing more soyabeans every year’ and the new policy will open up a new

than any other city in the US,’ James Gennaro, chair of the New York City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee, was quoted as saying. ‘Our legislation will annually replace millions of gallons of petroleum with an equal volume of renewable, sustainably produced biodiesel.

We are already home to what will be the largest biodiesel processing facility in the country, as well as a growing grease collection industry, so we expect to see more green

collar jobs and green economic growth as a result of this.’

‘Extensive testing has clearly shown that biodiesel blended with traditional heating oil is safe and actually improves fuel efficiency through cleaning and preserving equipment,’ adds John Maniscalco, CEO of the New York Oil Heating Association. ‘This law extends these benefits to all New Yorkers and will provide the state with the cleanest, most sustainable heating oil in the country.’

Not only is bioheat cleaner, it creates economic activity that benefits consumers.

But, to be called biodiesel, the fuel must meet the strict quality specifications of ASTM D 6751. Biodiesel has been thoroughly tested in both on-road and space heating applications and, as it is made in nearly every US state, production last year supported 50,000 jobs nationwide.

‘A uniform fuel standard for bioheat across New York State will promote investment in the heating oil industry and increase overall opportunity in the state,’ adds John Catsimatidis, CEO of United Biofuels. l

July/August 2013 • 33

Bioenergy profile A milk powder producing company in Uruguay is to extend its biogas production capabilities in the near future

Independence day

G

by James Barrett

ermanyheadquartered Weltec Biopower is working with a client, which produces milk powder in Montevideo, Uruguay, to improve a first development stage biogas plant, which currently produces 800kW and will eventually move up to 3MW capacity by 2015.

‘The whole facility was a fresh venture for them and every part of it — the stables, dairy facilities, biogas plant — was brand new,’ says Aguinaldo Ramalho, Weltec sales manager for South America and Southern Europe. ‘By having this facility on-site the business becomes more independent in terms of its energy needs. It will be able to use the combined heat and power generated to fuel both the manufacturing and packaging processes.’

Ramalho claims this particular biogas plant is one of only two comparable to European standards across Uruguay and Argentina.

‘As far as we know there are only around 30 biogas plants in those two countries and most of those are only lagoons, with no heating and rarely containing agitators,’ he says. ‘These biogas plants do not have a secure biological process, but this one does.’

The facility is made up of one pre-storage tank and two digesters, all made from stainless steel, and its controlled biological process runs by mesophilic temperature. Each digester has a capacity of 5,000m3.

‘It runs almost completely on cow slurry, with small amounts of feeding and glycerine residue used as substrate amounting to between 3 and 5% of the total

34 • July/August 2013

European know-how comes to Uruguay as biogas boilers power this farm site in Montevideo

input,’ Ramalho explains. ‘The cows, which currently number over 8,000, are fed by on-site maize crops, again showing the independence of the project.’

As the subsequent development stages of the biogas plant become established, it will be accompanied by a cattle increase to approximately 14,000, so there will be enough cow manure as feedstock for the plant too.

The entire plant was exported from Germany and only the foundation work, electrical wiring and connections were conducted locally. So, while the entire system and its components could be shipped in just a few containers, the only major challenge was dealing with Uruguay’s custom requirements.

‘This factor did cause a delay of two months to the project but, by working together with the client to sort through the paperwork and issues, we are certainly in a better position to avoid such obstructions in the future,’ he smiles.

Bioenergy future Ramalho can see a future for similar bioenergy projects throughout Uruguay and South America, particularly at

facilities like the milk powder plant which can make a project self-sufficient, with other interesting sectors being the food industry and by-products of biofuel and ethanol production.

‘A lot of potential bioenergy customers are expectant; they observe projects like this one and it allows them to contact operators and suppliers with questions and queries. The biggest problem is still most existing systems in Uruguay and Argentina do not work as desired, and therefore there is often skepticism towards biogas plants,’ he adds.

Another problem Ramalho points to is South Americans tend to expect a payback period of about five years on such projects, due to the high inflation the region works under. He believes this proves a cumbersome stumbling block and makes it another reason it can be difficult to implement plans.

‘The future definitely belongs to the use of organic waste however, which is further highlighted by the fact it is discussed at a political level on a regular basis,’ he adds.

But decentralised energy supply via combined heat and power in remote areas of Uruguay is also of great importance. All

in all, Weltec claims the Uruguayan agricultural industry has huge potential in the field of raw material for bioenergy production.

‘It plays a key role in the national economy, contributing almost 10% to the gross domestic product of the country with its population of 3.5 million,’ explains Ramalho. ‘Uruguay’s primary energy needs are still being covered by crude oil currently.

However, at least half of the energy consumption is to come from renewable sources by 2015. For this reason, the government in Montevideo has formulated a goal which sees agricultural waste being used for at least one third of overall energy generation.’

The legal framework conditions for this goal were established in 2010 so, until 2030, a feed-in tariff is to ensure the security of a current plant population with a total capacity of 200MW. Since mid-2010, the operators have been able to send the green power into the grid of state energy provider UTE, or sell the power directly to it.

‘Due to the growing need for energy, climate goals and the desired independence from energy imports, Uruguay‘s energy policy does focus on a broad energy mix and the involvement of domestic energy resources,’ Ramalho concludes.

‘The implementation of these strategies, in conjunction with the investment-friendly environment, offers enterprises like us favourable operating conditions. The finished project at the milk powder facility could serve as a reference example for not only the country but the continent as a whole.’ l

Bioenergy Insight

profile Bioenergy Petrochemical industry player Dow is looking to become more sustainably efficient as it moves towards operational status

Biomass first in Brazil

A

new partnership is due to begin this year in Brazil which will add to what renewable energy via biomass company Energias Renovaveis do Brasil (ERB) is calling a ‘burgeoning’ sector within the country.

With that in mind, the company will work with the Brazilian division of sustainability solution provider Dow to provide it with biomass-based steam at a major installation location in Aratu. ‘The longterm agreement was signed back in 2010 and we are now in a position to begin operations this October,’ explains ERB industrial development manager Luiz Pellegrini.

Dow’s presence in Aratu stretches across several factories, the biggest in its portfolio, and it receives all of its electricity from hydropower, but the chloralkali and chlorohydrin production processes require both electricity and steam. The steam is currently produced by 200,000m3 capacity naturalgas fired boilers so, through this project, ERB will aim to substitute that gas production.

Eventually Dow will be producing 75% of its power needs through biomass and hydropower sources, reducing CO2 emissions and natural gas use.

‘Our facility shall produce steam from eucalyptus shavings obtained from our own 100% dedicated reforestation areas, thus making Dow the first petrochemical industry player in Brazil to obtain power via biomass,’ says Pellegrini.

‘The project’s agricultural part includes proprietary cultivation and handling of approximately 10,000 hectares

Bioenergy Insight

Getting there: a snapshot of the boiler construction earlier this year

of reforestation eucalyptus.

The project will meet industrial steam demand of Dow’s factories for more than 8,300 hours per year, under an 18 year supply contract.’

For its part Dow states it chose wood biomass as an energy source because ‘traditional alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar, cannot provide the necessary heat to produce sufficient steam’. Also, biomass provides a proven, abundant and secure source of lowcarbon energy in Brazil.

Jackpot for all ERB has been providing cogeneration power plants since 2008, producing steam and electricity via its own biomass supplies, and is now aiming to open up a new market by working with others in industries that

are used to working with fossil fuels every day.

‘Looking strictly within Brazil, I would confidently say there are over 350 cogeneration plants fuelled by biomass currently, most burning bagasse and woodchips,’ says Pellegrini. ‘The opportunity for this market to grow is there because natural gas and fuel oil prices are typically higher than biomass for energy purposes.’

ERB claims the solution offered to Dow is vertically integrated and covers the entire steam productive chain. The project includes the installation and operation of a new CBC-Mitsubishi boiler with production capacity of 150 tonnes per hour, plus the installation of a biomass processing unit with wood chopping capacity of 80 tonnes per hour.

Pellegrini reveals the total amount invested into the

project, on both industrial and agricultural aspects, is BR$265 million (€87.3 million). That amount includes $1.5 million earmarked exclusively for social-environment purposes.

ERB intends to strengthen the position of community associations and family-owned farms via this money, intially on the north coast of Bahia, with support from Brazilian development bank BNDES. ‘We wanted to further help local communities while bringing the more obvious environmental benefits these projects bring along with them,’ explains Pellegrini.

‘This is the first project of its kind to be implemented by us but others, following the integrated biomass to energy production model, are already under analysis and development in other regions of the country,’ he concludes. l

July/August 2013 • 35

Bioenergy plant update

Plant update – South America Adenium and Enarsa Location

Two biomass-fired power plants in Formosa, Argentina Alternative fuel Renewable energy Capacity 100MW each Feedstock 750,000 tonnes of biomass Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Project start date January 2013 (announced) Completion date 2017 Investment $252.6 million (€90 million) Suzano Energia Renovável Location Maranhão, Brazil Alternative fuel Wood pellets Capacity 1 million tonnes Feedstock Eucalyptus Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Project start date November 2012 (announced) Completion date 2014 Investment $536 million (€405 million) Biosev SA Location Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil Alternative fuel Renewable energy Capacity 78MW Feedstock Biomass such as sugarcane residue Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Completion date May 2013 Investment $73 million (€55 million) Comasa Location Araucania, Chile Alternative fuel Renewable energy Capacity 26MW Feedstock Biomass Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Project start date March 2013 Havana Energy Location Ciego de Ávila province, Cuba Alternative fuel Renewable energy Capacity 30MW Feedstock Biomass such as sugarcane bagasse Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Project start date November 2012 (announced) Completion date 2015

Unknown Location Alternative fuel Capacity Feedstock

Matanzas, Cuba Renewable energy 20MW By-products of the sugar production industry such as sugarcane bagasse and residue. It will later be able to handle wood residues Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Project start date June 2013 (announced). Construction to begin at the end of the year Investment $60 million (€45 million) Comment This will be the second biomass power plant in Cuba. The first was announced last year. The government has plans to build five plants of this kind throughout the country Energy Answers Arecibo Location Puerto Rico Alternative fuel Renewable energy Capacity 77MW Feedstock Biomass Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Project start date June 2012 (announced) Unnamed milk powder producer Location Alternative fuel Capacity Feedstock

Montevideo, Uruguay Renewable energy 3MW Biogas from the manure of 8,000 dairy cows Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Designer / builder Weltec Biopower Project start date January 2013 Completion date 2015 Ener5 Location

Four plants in Minas and Treinta y Tres, Uruguay Alternative fuel Renewable power Capacity 20MW each Feedstock Woodchips from eucalyptus forests Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Designer / builder Lisger SA and Beltone SA Project start date September 2012 Completion date 2015 Investment $200 million (€151 million) UTE and UPM Location Uruguay Alternative fuel Renewable energy Capacity 50MW Feedstock Biomass Construction / expansion / Construction acquisition Project start date June 2013 Completion date 2015 Investment $130 million (€98 million)

*This list contains major plant projects in the US, including the information available at the time of printing. If you would like to update or list any additional plants in future issues please email keeley@bioenergy-news.com

36 • July/August 2013

Bioenergy Insight

brazil Bioenergy North American pellet exporters have little to worry about when it comes to competition from Brazil. With investor confidence at an all time low, many pellet plans have yet to take off

Slow and unsteady

W

by Amy McLellan

hen it comes to biomass there are few places as blessed as South America.

The continent has the land mass, the climate and the agricultural base to be a major supplier of biomass feedstock, be it sugarcane, soyabeans, palm oil, coconut or woody waste from pine and eucalyptus plantations.

The powerhouse of these is Brazil. The country is already an ethanol giant, distilling almost 27 billion litres from its giant sugarcane harvests to fuel its flex fuel road transport sector. It has also been making gains in building a biorefining industry, with major investments from the likes of Dow Chemical, Solazyme, Bunge and Braskem in bioplastics and biochemicals plants.

And, of course, it is also a world leader in woody biomass, with the second largest forest area in the world, after Russia, and the largest area of tropical forest in the world. This gives the country a massive headstart when it comes to feedstock availability.

According to the Brazilian Association Industry Biomass and Renewable Energy (ABIB), short-rotation woody crops, like its eucalyptus and pine plantations, yield around 39 million tonnes of woody waste, of which 59% is field residues and 41% is industrial waste.

Yet the country’s woody biomass is largely underused.

There is modest pellet

Bioenergy Insight

Biomass in the spotlight: burning Brazilian wood pellets in UK power stations might attract vocal opposition

production by a handful of small logging companies, which use sawdust and other wood debris to make pellets for sale to local users in areas with unreliable power supply.

According to Celso Marcelo Oliveira, president of the ABIB and also CEO of Brazil Biomass, which is looking to develop sustainable pellets from sugarcane wastes, this market ‘is so small it is hard to keep track of who is producing what each year’.

Yet industry watchers have long anticipated — or in the cases of some competitors long feared — the development of a large-scale wood pellet

industry in Brazil that could potentially undercut the growing transatlantic trade between pellet makers in North America and woodguzzling utilities in Europe.

Yet while North American shipments to Europe are now on an industrial scale, with vast mechanised operations in the US forest belt shipping tankers full of pellets to power stations in the Netherlands and the UK for co-firing, the Brazilian wood pellet industry is still very much a cottage industry.

In part this reflects a wider caution about investing in Brazil. Once lauded as an emerging economic

powerhouse and the ‘B’ in the BRIC block of fastgrowing economies that included Russia, India and China, the country now carries a health warning as an investment destination.

Growth forecasts are being trimmed for this year from 2.34% to 2.31%, and Latin America’s largest economy is now forecast by analysts to grow less than 3% for a third consecutive year. Credit ratings agencies currently rate Brazil at the second lowest investment grade, with S&P last month revising its outlook to negative saying there was a one-in-three chance of a downgrade in the

July/August 2013 • 37

Bioenergy brazil next two years. Moody’s also signalled in July that it will review its positive outlook by the end of the year.

One of the big structural issues facing Brazil is debt.

The ratio of its debt to gross domestic product is almost 60%, compared with less than 40% for Mexico, Turkey and India.

Pellet plans on hold This includes companies that had been at the forefront of developing a domestic pellet industry with the kind of critical mass to win European supply contracts. This time last year Brazilian pulp and paper giant Suzano Papel e Celulose (SPC) had aggressive plans to invest $800 million (€603 million) to jump start a major pellet production business. It had plans to build two pellet plants in the north east of the country, each with capacity of 1 million tonnes, with ambitions for a third to lift installed capacity to 3 million tonnes by 2014.

This would have been the largest pellet project in the region. The Salvadorbased company planned to make the pellets from specific eucalyptus clones, with a higher concentration of lignin and reduced harvest cycles to ensure competitive production capacity and costs.

Yet by late 2012 there were already signs of trouble, with the estimated costs ballooning north of $1 billion after the company failed to find a strategic partner while production start-up, initially slated for 2013-14, was pushed back to 2015.

By March 2013 the company confirmed what many had suspected, announcing it was indefinitely shelving the project along with a planned pulp plant in the state of Piaui. The reason cited was the company is seeking to cut debt, which at the end of Q1 2013 stood at R$6.8 billion (€2.2 billion) and was

38 • July/August 2013

running at five times EBITDA. SPC, which declined to be interviewed, will instead focus on improving productivity from its existing operations and completing its ambitious Maranhão pulp factory. This will have 1.5 million tonnes per year (tpy) capacity, target markets in Europe and the US and generate 100MW of surplus power. This huge construction project, which has seen costs rise due to the growing price of labour and materials as well as contingency plans for high rainfall, is due online before 2014.

The Salvador-based company, which posted net income of R$42 million on revenues of R$1.2 billion in Q1 2013, said the pellet plant would only be revived depending on macroeconomic conditions. As one analyst puts it, ‘it is a big company that is secure in the business it knows — why, given its debt problems, would it give itself the

about entering the wood pellet business by drawing on feedstock from its eucalyptus and pine plantations in Paraná state in southern Brazil. The company could not be reached for confirmation of the level of investment planned.

Another planned investment is Sao Paulo-headquartered Green Energy Group, a holding company for pellet and bioenergy projects in Brazil. The company plans a 40,000 tpy pellet plant in Votuporangu using sugarcane bagasse as feedstock.

Bagasse in short supply A number of players have been eyeing the potential of using bagasse as the base for a pellet business. But while this would seem to tick all the right boxes when it comes to sustainability, the reality is rather more complicated. For a start, availability of bagasse is closely tied to the health,

There is also no culture of pelleting in Brazil, which means it lacks the machinery and know-how to deliver a consistent high quality product to satisfy European utilities aggravation of a brand new business like pellets?’

Brazilian conglomerate Colleman Group, which has interests ranging from oil and gas to dental insurance, has also been planning to invest R$30 million in a pellet plant in the southern Brazil.

The projected capacity was 1 million tpy with an eye on customers in Europe and Asia, but the group declined to comment on progress.

Other would-be players are also proving shy about any plans. BR Forest, for example, had been talking

or otherwise, of the nation’s sugarcane harvests and the sugarcane harvests have been poor in recent years.

What’s more, the drive to use bagasse as a green feedstock for a range of bioenergy projects, from biopower to second generation ethanol, with companies like Spain’s Abengoa developing a 100 million litre per year cellulosic ethanol plant, means this former waste product that was dumped on the fields is now in short supply ‘What used to be trash

is now gold,’ says Al Costa, director of Madrid-based Alkol Bioenergy, which last year inked two contracts to export biopellets made from bagasse to Europe. ‘Even if we had signed a major export deal to Europe we would have found we had little or nothing to offer the customer.’

He is hopeful that the shortage of bagasse will be addressed following last year’s improved harvest and the change of heart by the Brazilian government, which has agreed to provide subsidised credit to support the replanting of sugarcane to boost productivity. ‘It is expensive to replant, about $2,500 per hectare, and that’s a big cost if you’re a producer that’s already in debt because of the previous poor harvest,’ says Costa, explaining some of the structural problems that have compounded the weather-related harvest problems. ‘The current government had a policy not to subsidise replanting and that is helped create the problem but now the president has finally changed her mind. That should help the next harvest.’

Costa has also rethought the end destination for his bagasse pellets, which it seems are not suitable for home heating because of their ash content. They do, however, make perfect feedstock for cellulosic ethanol and the plan is to make the pellets in Brazil and then ship them to second generation ethanol factories in Europe.

Higher production costs The difficulties building a large pellet industry in Brazil, be it from wood or bagasse, have not surprised some industry watchers. Last year Jefferson Mendes, director of forestry consultancy Poyry Silviconsult Engengaria, told Bioenergy Insight that the reason the proposed

Bioenergy Insight

brazil Bioenergy big pellets plants in Brazil stalled at the planning stage was because the ‘internal rate of return was almost close to zero’. His analysis would appear to be borne out by subsequent events.

After all, there is no shortage of projected demand from European utilities and places like Korea and Japan. The transatlantic trade works, as evidenced by the huge industrial-scale operations now shipping out tankers of pellets from deepsea ports in the US. Yet structurally the odds are against pioneering pellet makers in Brazil, largely because of the higher costs of production. It may enjoy a feedstock advantage but this is a huge country and the logistical infrastructure simply is not there to support the kind of efficient transportation required to make a decent margin in this business, particularly as it already faces higher shipping costs compared to competitors in the US wood belt. According to Seth Ginther, executive director of the US Industrial Pellet Association, the cost of shipping pellets to the Amsterdam-RotterdamAntwerp region from Brazil would be $44 per tonne compared to $36 per tonne from the southeast US. That near $10 per tonne cost advantage matters in this famously low margin business.

There is also no culture of pelleting in Brazil, which means it lacks the machinery and know-how to deliver a consistent high quality product to satisfy European utilities which, after early problems with inconsistent suppliers, have proven to be conservative and demanding customers.

Of course, many of these barriers can be addressed with the right levels of investment.

Oliveira of ABIB says harvest costs for residues

Bioenergy Insight

could be massively reduced using new log harvesting methods while forwarding costs, about 20% of the total costs, could fall by 20% through improved bundling of residues and the use of specialised, larger capacity forwarders.

Chipping costs could fall by around 50% by transporting unprocessed or bundled residues to the point of end use for efficient processing, rather than chipping them at the roadside as is currently the case, although Oliveira admitted that stumpage prices and haulage will remain high.

Finally, this is an industry under the spotlight. The trade in pellets from the US to UK power stations has attracted some negative media attention in recent months; how much more vulnerable to such attacks would the utilities be when the wood in question comes from Brazil, no matter how sustainable the plantation nor how distant from the Amazon? Last year Bioenergy Insight reported that the UK’s ROC regime for biomass could sound the starting gun for Brazil’s pellet industry. Twelve months on and it would seem potential investors are wary of joining the race.

Beyond Brazil In Argentina there are a small number of domestic pellet companies with modest output and few country watchers expect this to change given the political and investment climate. Those countries

with rich forestry resources have expanding pulp and paper industries that burn their residues to make electricity. In Uruguay for example, despite a rich wood basket and major investments from Finnish forestry giant UPM, which is expanding its eucalyptusbased pulp operations, there is no pellet market.

Chile has a small domestic market for pellets which was stimulated as part of a sustainability programme by Japanese giant Sumitomo, which has extensive pulp and eucalyptus holdings in the country. It has a joint venture with local company known as Ecomas, which started to produce pellets in 2006 and today produces around 20,000 tpy for use in local heating.

Colombia could be a potential candidate for a strong pellet business and research is certainly underway to investigate the potential of its bountiful biomass resources. Earlier this year the mechanical engineering department of Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota conducted trials of different feedstocks.

The researchers believe the country has the natural biomass resources, particularly in the waste from its agricultural sector, to develop a large bioenergy sector to offset the burning of brown coal and encourage development in rural areas with no stable electricity supply. Indeed, the energy potential of coconut shells and oil palm solid residues alone could be enough to

support 2.1 million people.

The study found, however, that coconut shells are difficult to pelletise; they require higher powered grinding equipment and also need to be dried first due to high water content, pushing up the energy requirements of the process.

Sawdust, wood shavings and oil palm shells were found to be suitable feedstocks, delivering the appropriate compression ratio, final density and heating value to be in line with European standards for distribution in Italy and Sweden ‘although they were oversized for use in Germany and Austria’, said the researchers.

In the Netherlands researchers are also mulling the pellet potential of Colombia.

The Netherlands Energy Research Centre is backing a project to assess the techno-economic potential of making sustainable torrefied bamboo pellets that could be exported to the Netherlands and other pellet consumers in Europe.

As yet this is all very early days and Brazil probably remains the best hope of a bountiful pellet powerhouse in South America. Yet despite the country’s biomass headstart over pellet makers elsewhere in the world, Brazil also carries a handicap in terms of higher logistics and transportation costs.

Unless pellet prices rise, would-be pellet producers will face an uphill battle to secure investment in a business where, at least for now, the margins would be not just thin, but anorexic. l

Country

Production (tpy)

Consumption (tpy)

Export (tpy)

End use

Brazil

25,000

25,000

0 Heating

Chile

20,000

20,000

0 Heating

Argentina

7,000

7,000

0 Heating

July/August 2013 • 39

Bioenergy profile ‘Learning on the job’: RWE still views the conversion as a success despite the disappointing news

James Barrett goes behind the curtain and talks to RWE nPower about the closure of its Tilbury power station

‘World’s largest biomass plant’ pulls down the shutters

E

nergy company RWE nPower has called time on its 100% biomass-fired power plant in Tilbury, UK. The German-owned company publicly announced on 4 July it will stop work at the 750MW biomass plant while it considers and reviews further options on project feasibility.

At the time Roger Miesen, RWE Generation’s chief technical officer, was quoted

40 • July/August 2013

as saying the decision was ‘not taken lightly’ and was taken ‘with regret’.

‘We informed our people on 1 July the project was halting but we remain committed to this project,’ adds Tilbury power station manager Nigel Staves, speaking exclusively to Bioenergy Insight. ‘We were committed to this facility and, as we are only mothballing it, we held a first round of interviews with our people for future positions. It must be

noted that many of the 220 employees have chosen to take redundancy however.’

The Tilbury facility began life as a coal-fired plant over 30 years ago and was due to close down in 2015 as RWE opted it out of the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) in 2008, which required all combustion facilities with a thermal capacity of 50MW or more to limit emissions.

‘We were working within

the 20,000 operational hours allowed via the opting out of the LCPD, and we first began looking at options to add combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) on the Tilbury site,’ explains Staves.

‘But we put that technology to use at our Aberthaw power station in Wales and held it off for Tilbury while we further investigated the option of biomass.’

So, in an about turn in 2011, units at the facility

Bioenergy Insight

profile Bioenergy were converted to handle biomass to make Tilbury the ‘biggest biomass plant in the world’. The conversion did not affect RWE’s opt-out position in regard to the LCPD. ‘To opt-in would have meant investing in flue-gas desulphurisation at a cost of over £100 million (€115.5 million),’ reveals Staves.

‘I cannot stress enough the switch to biomass was successful however and the decision to opt either in or out of the LCPD would not have made any difference to the position we now find ourselves in. We simply ran out of operational hours.’

Ultimately Staves says the biomass project was a ‘learning by doing’ exercise

and, as the project got further down the line, it soon dawned on RWE that further investment would be based on its confidence of the UK biomass market.

‘We applied for environmental permits in 2012 which would have kept the plant open, but the investment needed ran into hundreds of millions of pounds. The amount would still be lower than building a new plant from scratch but the global recession has made markets difficult to predict,’ says Staves. ‘The projections of forward energy prices are low and RWE’s available capital for development has been reduced.’

The company is still

awaiting confirmation on those permits. Additionally, some may say fortunately for RWE, there were no longterm feedstock contracts to honour as the project soured.

‘All our suppliers were made aware of the situation, but we just used a “delivery when needed” system in that respect,’ he adds. ‘We are keeping those relationships open however as part of any new project discussions.’

A fire also damaged a large storage area at Tilbury in 2012 and forced the plant to close for five months before it reopened, but the incident ‘did not hinder the project’, according to Staves.

‘Tilbury remains a good site for future power generation,’

he adds. ‘We still believe biomass has a role to play in future power generation and RWE will continue to progress options at strategic sites.’

The Tilbury facility provided 1% of national gird needs in the UK and will shut down at the end of October.

‘RWE has invested billions in the UK energy infrastructure over the past five years, including two new CCGT power stations and new on- and offshore developments,’ Staves says.

‘We do not believe there is any immediate risk of the lights going out, but investors need clarity on policy and regulation to ensure they can deliver the required investment.’ l

Outsiders’ perspective The biomass power ‘project feasibility’ study at Tilbury no doubt provided RWE with valuable insights in dealing with conversion of coal plants to biomass, including how to optimise performance as well as the scale of investment required.

This suspension of the project reflects more on specific business issues for RWE at Tilbury than on the industry as a whole. The plant was planned to shut down later this year once its remaining permitted operating hours ran out, leaving RWE to address the decision whether to re-accredit the plant with the Environment Agency on a biomass-only basis. Going ahead with this decision would have required further technical modifications and infrastructure investment.

However, the Tilbury experience should not be seen as the start of a ‘domino effect’ in industry. Other biomass conversion developers are clearly forging ahead with biomass power projects, which include developing biomass pelleting, shipping and storage operations, representing significant investment in the industry. RWE itself has other biomass developments that it continues to pursue.

Tilbury represented 750MWe of Bioenergy Insight

Turley says confidence in large biomass projects is there

biomass-fuelled power generating capacity. Earlier this year discussions with industry by the NNFCC identified that 4.5 to 5GW of coal to biomass conversion capacity was currently being brought forward by power generators other than RWE, representing some of the biggest generators in the UK. While policy clarity and stability will clearly be important in ensuring all this capacity comes to fruition, the current industry investment in biomass suggests confidence that there is a sustainable

future for such large-scale biomass conversion projects out to 2027 at least. This should be welcome news for a government looking to secure dispatchable low-carbon power, but not taken for granted.

In contrast the outlook for dedicated biomass power-only projects is bleaker. Draft EMR proposals, recently released for consultation, announce that the government does not intend to support any further dedicated biomass developments (without CHP) under the new Contract for Difference proposals. The government is looking to cap dedicated biomass power-only plants at 400MW and this is going to be significantly exceeded by the potential projects in development.

So this announcement is in line with the government’s plans to constrain such projects. This will be a significant blow for a number of dedicated biomass projects that were looking towards the CFD mechanism for support, and in many ways were better suited to supporting domestic biomass supply chains.

David Turley, policy and strategy manager, NNFCC

July/August 2013 • 41

Bioenergy profile Bioenergy Insight speaks to Drax four months into its first step into biomass

The latest on Drax’s biomass conversion

T

he conversion of Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire to 50% biomass by 2016 remains on target and well within current requirements for feed source sustainability.

That’s the headline message given by Drax to Bioenergy Insight after almost 40 years of coal-fired production.

The Selby-based plant, traditionally run on six coalfired generating units, is now getting into the sharp end of a £700 million (€812 million) coal-to-biomass conversion programme which will see at least three units burning biomass over the next few years.

‘We converted our first unit to biomass at the beginning of April this year, the second will follow in 2014 and the third in, or before, 2016,’ says a Drax spokeswoman, adding that there had been no change to that delivery schedule since it was first announced.

‘We are burning wood pellets in the first converted unit and, as part of our planned commissioning process, have been running it at various loads.’

With each converted unit requiring 2.3 million tonnes of biomass, future conversion progress, even to the threeunit point, will be ‘dependent on securing the rights to sufficient sustainable biomass’.

Questions also remain over how much of the plant’s biomass requirement can eventually be sourced from within the UK, rather than the contentious importing of materials from

42 • July/August 2013

North America, southern Europe and the Baltics.

‘To begin with, we will be burning predominantly wood pellets,’ says the spokeswoman. ‘Over time, however, as we gain more experience of running the converted units, we will broaden the scope of the

While still in the throes of burning biomass for the first time in a fully commercial sense, Drax however is already facing considerable backlash concerning its sourcing of wood pellets from as far away as North America. This is despite the plant starting out as the largest carbon emitter

Drax argues that the carbon footprint of shipping biomass from the east coast of America is much the same, in total tonnage terms, as bringing biomass to Selby by truck from Scotland biomass material burnt. Hence, we are still committed to UKsourced material, but we do not disclose these volumes.’

At face value, that sounds a little less encouraging for UK biomass prospects than the message given to growers a year ago when the company line was that they were ‘heavily committed to sourcing as much homegrown product at possible’.

In 2011, Drax burnt 9 million tonnes of coal to generate the bulk of its output, alongside 1.3 million tonnes of biomass, almost half of which was used at that point as part of its R&D programme.

Once the three-unit conversion is complete, annual biomass intake will need to be close to 7 million tonnes.

Total plant conversion to biomass, if and when that happens, will create a demand for 14 million tonnes.

in the UK, by a factor of two, due to its size and output.

The company’s response to those who have questioned how moving biomass halfway round the world can be good for the environment, has been to declare that it carbon footprints all its raw material sourcing and deal solely in low-value forest products, such as residues and thinning. All raw material intake, it claims, is taken from sustainable sources and is entirely sound in terms of the company’s carbon footprint.

Drax also argues that the carbon footprint of shipping biomass from the east coast of America is much the same, in total tonnage terms, as bringing biomass to Selby by truck from Scotland. The maths behind that statement include comparing the process of transporting 50,000-60,000 tonnes in bulk by sea from the

US against the need for 1,600 lorries to shift the same amount bit-by-bit from Scotland.

‘We can also deliver significant carbon savings compared to coal even when the biomass is imported,’ says the spokeswoman.

‘Furthermore, the US has a plentiful source of sustainable biomass that complies fully with our robust sustainability policy, is a good trade partner and so provides us with a secure source of biomass.’

Even so, being able to continue sourcing biomass in a sustainable manner and in sufficient quantity remains one of the company’s major unknowns going forward. Asked when, or if, Drax might be ready to convert units fourto-six from coal to biomass, the spokeswoman comments: ‘We have said we would consider converting further units should we have the right market conditions. However, with the conversion of our third unit in or before 2016 it is too early to commit to converting additional units.’

The plant’s further transition from its coal-fired past to a biomass future also depends on the development of a positive regulatory climate within which a new-look Drax could flourish. In that context, the spokeswoman said the company was ‘supportive of mandatory sustainability criteria’ and that they awaited the publication of the government’s consultation response on the issue with interest.

‘We are keen to ensure mandatory criteria across the EU,’ she adds.

The Drax hierarchy also

Bioenergy Insight

profile Bioenergy remains unfazed by Energy Secretary Ed Davey’s reported recent comments that ‘making electricity from biomass based on imported wood is not a long-term answer to our energy needs — I am quite clear about that’.

‘There is no change in government policy,’ says the Drax spokeswoman. ‘The electricity market reform (ERM) delivery plan simply confirms that for biomass conversion the RO subsidy will cease in 2027; this has always been the case and is exactly what our investment is based on.’

She urged observers not to confuse dedicated biomass, involving new build, standalone plants, with biomass conversion — the type taking place at Drax.

When Bioenergy Insight sought further clarification on the subject from DECC, however, the official response

included two key comments: ‘Sustainably sourced biomass suitable for energy is constrained, but it can make an important contribution to decarbonising our energy system,’ it says. ‘There are important security of supply benefits to substituting coal by biomass. It offers a quick and cheap way of decarbonising the electricity grid, but we have always been clear this is a transitional technology, to be replaced by other, lower carbon forms of renewable energy in the medium- to long-term.’

And then further into the statement: ‘In the longterm, a key game changer will be biomass with carbon capture and storage (CCS), delivering net carbon savings, allowing its use for electricity and transport.’

So far as CCS is concerned, of course, Drax, Alstom and BOC are already working

together on proposals to build a new, standalone oxy-combustion CCS demonstration plant of up to 450MW. If this plan is taken forward, the plant will be built on land next to Drax.

‘In March we were one of two preferred bidders selected by DECC to enter into discussions for Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) study funding and that process is ongoing,’ says the spokeswoman, adding that in July this year, the UK government had submitted the project to the European Commission for funding through the second call of the NER300 programme.

‘Both of these funding routes, and an appropriate market mechanism through the EMR, are necessary for the development of this project,’ she says.

As for funding issues in general at the Yorkshire

plant, the end of April 2013 announcement by Drax of a £75 million amortising loan facility with Friends Life has helped to ensure that, according to the company, the all-in cost of the new facility is ‘very competitive’.

The new loan is underpinned by guarantee from HM Treasury and issued under the Infrastructure UK Guarantee Scheme. This replaces £50 million of the £100 million amortising loan facility agreed with the UK Green Investment Bank, which was signed in December 2012.

‘The new loan facility enhances the financing structure executed last year by providing additional liquidity to the group, securing HM Treasury support for our plans and ensuring a smoother profile of debt maturities across the structure,’ adds the spokeswoman. l

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July/August 2013 • 43

Bioenergy pellets As one of the UK’s largest power stations begins biomass conversion, how will the US wood pellet industry take advantage as a supplier to the island nation?

Satisfying the UK’s pellet appetite

D

rax power station, located in Yorkshire, currently produces 3,960MW of power split between six turbines of 660MW capacity.

It has a rail loop on-site which will eventually deliver both coal and woody biomass feedstock for its system. It is believed to be the UK’s single largest source of CO2, but Drax has been considering three ideas to drive carbon out of its production: 1) Upgrade the efficiency of the six turbines 2) Consider co-firing or move to 100% biomass 3) Look at carbon capture and storage (CSS) methods.

The six turbines have been upgraded and improved the plant’s efficiency by 5%, but there is no more room for improvement on that tip, and Drax is keeping an eye on CSS technologies and advancements — so enter biomass.

Half of the turbines are to be wholly-converted into using biomass, which is a more challenging process than simply converting all six into co-firing capacity.

Drax, once it completes this project, will need around 7 million tonnes of biomass annually, which equates to two-thirds of the total European biomass consumed less than three years ago.

It already has two 74,000 tonne capacity pellet stores and two more

44 • July/August 2013

under construction, but a forest area of 4,600 square miles would be needed to produce that amount of required biomass a year.

Moving forward This kind of news is spurring on massive investment in biomass production, capacity

each year to date. Estimates for 2020 are placed between 25 and 70 million tonnes, but I feel it’ll be somewhere in the middle of that.’

Ginther believes the EU looks to North America for biomass because of its ‘sustainable forestry practices’ and ‘large robust natural forest resources’.

USIPA and large power generating companies have been talking to UK parliament and DECC over the past nine months about US sustainability practices and export in the US, particularly in places like Brunswick, Savannah and Baton Rouge to name a few.

Seth Ginther, executive director of the US Industrial Pellet Association (USIPA), reveals North America exported 4.36 million tonnes of biomass pellets into the EU last year, split between the US (36%), Canada (34%) and others (30%).

‘That was the first year the US overtook Canada in exports to the EU and it is not expected to change again any time soon,’ he adds. ‘The EU imported 1.77 million tonnes in 2009 and it has gone up around a million

‘We have a stable political landscape in this regard too, which acts like a badge of quality and proves an advantage to EU energy producers,’ he adds. ‘Of the 4.36 million tonnes last year, 30% went into the UK, with the Netherlands second on 24%. Belgium took 16% while Denmark, Sweden, Italy and Poland are the others to figure in the top seven.’

Ginther highlights the UK as being the largest market for the US pellet export industry, as it strives to hit an overall 20% renewable energy target by 2020.

‘The UK is one of four EU member states that want to

rely on biomass. There is one ‘carrot’ and one ‘stick’ over there,’ he elaborates. ‘The positive aspect comes in the form of Renewable Obligation Credits (ROCs), which rewards power generators with money back depending on the level of biomass used.

‘The ‘stick’ is a carbon price floor which has started seeing results this year. It makes coal-fired electricity uneconomic moving forward unless generators install CSS systems. The ROC system has been renewed until 2027 but, if it should ever be taken away, the carbon floor price war would still keep an incentive for biomass use.’

He claims this is shaping the UK market as, without it, UK power generators would find it uneconomical to use biomass in the fight to reach the 2020 targets.

UK power generators must prove on a government level that any biomass they use is sustainably sourced.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) introduced criteria designed to solidify that accordance last summer by adopting a government timber procurement policy for anything wood-based (CPET).

CPET is split into two categories — A and B. To be placed in category A, the generator must be using qualifying biomass product from suppliers, but Ginther says only a small sector of

Bioenergy Insight

pellets Bioenergy

Bountiful: the US is a world leader in the sustainable forestry industry

the overall US industry can meet that requirement Category B is there if a generator’s supplier cannot meet the first requirement.

It may not be able to produce certified A content, but it can prove its pellets come through a certified process based on risk assessment.

‘You could not use it for mass balance however because that would mean utilities would have to set up a brand new supply chain for each supplier as the biomass could vary,’ explains Ginther. ‘It would be nearly impossible to do as a different infrastructure would be needed for each supplier.

It’s very cost prohibitive.’

USIPA and a number of large power generating companies, including Drax, have been talking to UK Parliament and DECC over past nine months about US sustainability practices and Ginther is ‘optimistic’ those criteria will be recognised via DECC. ‘We sat down with the DECC in July and they are preparing final guidance plans for presentation before UK parliament breaks for the summer,’ he expands. ‘I hope this will

Bioenergy Insight

signal market certainty and help push through longterm agreements which are waiting on this issue to be resolved. It will have a knock-on effect and I’m sure investments in the US market by private equity and other avenues will follow.’

If all the proposed biomass adaptations by all major UK power suppliers happen, Ginther believes demand for biomass could hit 20 million tonnes by 2017. Aside from Drax, he points to Eggborough Power potentially converting four 500MW units, E.ON Ironbridge may temporarily convert one 440MW unit and IP/Mitsui in Rugeley may convert two 500MW units.

‘All this represents the building blocks for a viable biomass industry,’ he goes on to say. ‘This was a young industry a couple of years ago but policy certainty will make biomass an actual energy commodity and it is coming at EU and UK levels.

‘It also needs uniformed standards and the eight biggest European generators have agreed to only use pellets that fit into three different categories, all based things like size,

weight and calorific value.

So, for example, a pellet produced in Belgium could be used in the UK and this expands market potential.’

Ginther also believes a uniformed sustainability agreement allowing for third party audits and for companies to ‘show their workings’ at every stage of the process would benefit everyone.

Wood you believe it The US is currently the global leader in sustainable timber production and this is seen as a key to a fruitful relationship between it and the UK when talking about future biomass business.

Danny Tenny, the CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO), reveals the US had access to 8 million tonnes of pulpwood in 1900 but, by the year 2000, that figure had risen to over 200 million tonnes.

‘World War II put a huge strain on wood resources during that period, but even after that we were successful in maintaining our base forest and timber resources,’ he adds.

NAFO believes new markets coming online are not a threat to that sustainability but would actually help reinforce it because a strong market would strengthen forest extent and productivity. A weak market might bring more doubt to its position than benefit.

‘We faced two big threats to our sustainable forest in recent memory,’ Tenny explains. ‘A massive dip in the housing market a few years ago, until 2009, meant demand on forestry resources declined or even disappeared in some cases.

The paper market fell sharply too and they are two staples, so having another strong market thrown into the mix would not be a bad thing.’

He says the greatest threat to the US forestry industry is through product loss via things like weather conditions and animals or insects. Statistics offered by Dave Wear, who works with the Centre for Integrated Forest Science, believes forest areas could decline from 61 to 37 million acres over the next 45 years.

But NAFO is part of a coalition called Keeping Working Forests Working which includes, among others, members from forest owners, conservation and wild groups which calls for the development of an actionable national policy platform to protect its industry.

‘We want to strengthen existing and emerging markets for goods and services overall, while we’d like see more support from both public and private investments into land backed up with government policies to support working forests,’ explains Tenny. ‘The UK and some EU countries are already supporting policies which encourage forest owners to invest in the US, which is good news. No matter what, forests will play a vital role in any atmospheric carbon solution.’ l

July/August 2013 • 45

Bioenergy bioenergy in Germany Although the wood pellet sector is faring well, the biogas market is fading fast

Germany’s ups and downs

G

ermany’s energy policy has been shaped by events that took place two years ago and 9,000km away when, in March 2011, a tsunami devastated eastern Japan and triggered the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The impacts of that shattering event, which killed 15,883 and displaced 340,000 people, are still being felt not only in Japan but around the world.

The Fukushima crisis prompted many nations to rethink their nuclear strategies and created a dilemma for those environmentalists who had come, many reluctantly, to embrace nuclear power as the best option for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The German response was swift and far-reaching.

The country announced a nuclear moratorium, with eight nuclear power plants with combined capacity of 8.5GW taken offline and a commitment to phase out the remaining 12GW by 2020.

This move to a nuclear-free power mix is to be achieved while also meeting ambitious emissions targets. As Michael Süß, CEO of Siemen’s energy sector puts it, this transition to a new energy policy is ‘the project of the century for the Germans’. He adds that while it is the right and feasible thing to do, it is not without its challenges, with the ‘tight schedule and the requisite grid expansion presenting the biggest challenges’.

The changes required will

46 • July/August 2013

A real energy revolution: Germany’s ambitious targets Target

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1

Reduce primary energy consumption by Reduce electricity consumption by 2

By 2020 2030

2040

2050

40% 55% 70% 80% 20%

50%

10%

25%

Reduce heat demand in buildings2

20%

Share of gross electricity consumption that should be provided by renewables

35% 50% 65% 80%

Primary energy demand to fall by

Share of gross final energy consumption that should be provided by renewables

80%

18% 30% 45% 60%

Source: Federal Ministry for The Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

not come cheap and already there are grumblings at the costs of implementing this Energiewende (energy revolution) as rising energy prices squeeze household incomes. The much-emulated German Renewable Energy Sources Act imposes a surcharge on energy bills to fund the development and expansion of green energy production; this year the levy increased from 3.6 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) to 5.3 cents.

In May 2013 the Parisbased International Energy Agency warned about the pressure this was placing on low-income households while intensive energy users, such as steel, cement and paper, have been shielded from the surcharge even as they have benefited from reduced wholesale prices as wind and solar power increases.

The IEA said this discrepancy is a ‘warning signal’ for Berlin’s energy revolution.

And while renewable energy already plays a key role in the German energy mix, 20% in 2011, up from 16% in 2010,

there has also been a heavier reliance on lignite-fired power generation (25%) with bituminous coal and natural gas also playing a key role (19% and 14%, respectively).

Indeed, greenhouse gas emissions in Germany rose 1.6% in 2012 as the country burned more hard coal and lignite for power generation and burned more gas for heating during a cold year.

Even so, the country is still ahead of its Kyoto targets: compared to 1990 levels, emissions in 2012 had dropped 25.5%. There is still much to be done, however, to meet its own target of minus 40% by 2020.

Biomass is set to play an important role in meeting these targets. According to a report from Roland Gerger Strategy Consultants, GreenTech made in Germany 3.0, in 2010 biomass was used to produce 33.5 billion kWh of power, a 10% increase over the prior year. In addition, biomass accounted for 92% of heat produced from renewable resources, providing approximately 127 billion kWh of thermal energy in 2010.

The end of the biogas boom?

Of this, biogas plants have been a particular feature of Germany’s renewable energy push, making good use of its large agricultural sector.

According to the Gerger report, in 2007 there were 3,700 biogas plants in operation in Germany, with a combined output of 1,270MW; by 2010, the number of biogas plants had increased to 5,900 with a total output of 2,300MW. The German Biogas Association (GBA) number is higher, with 6,000 plants with total output of 2,279MW in 2010, rising to 6,800 plants in 2011 with total installed capacity of 2,559MW. Since then, however, growth has slumped after compensation rates under the EEG were in some cases slashed and eligibility criteria tightened, while proposals in February from Federal Minister for the Environment Peter Altmaier, under pressure to reduce the costs of the EEG in an election year, included cutting price support for existing plants, leading to demonstrations and fierce lobbying.

Bioenergy Insight

bioenergy in Germany Bioenergy Compared to the astonishing growth rates of recent years, as more than 1,200 new plants a year were being brought online, only 340 new plants were built in 2012. The GBA says the 2012 figures are ‘sobering’, representing a drop of almost 74% on the 2011 tally of 1,278 new plants. The association believes biogas power will only grow by 177MW this year and much of this increase will be down to repowering or expanding existing facilities rather than investment in new plants. There have been large job losses, with the number of employees in the biogas sector falling from 63,000 in 2011 to 45,000 in late 2012 with the association predicting the loss of a further 3,000 jobs in 2013.

‘This massive drop in the biogas market presents many companies with a difficult situation,’ says Claudius da Costa Gomez, GBA MD, highlighting the reduced support under the EEG. As a result, many companies involved in supplying the German biogas sector are now looking to support new plant construction in Italy, France, eastern Europe and the UK. ‘In the next legislative period we need appropriate legal guidelines,’ says da Costa Gomez. ‘Biogas will make a valuable contribution to the energy transition, as it is one of the few renewable energy sources which can provide both heat and electricity.’

Wood pellets

up from 1.7 million tonnes in 2010 and just 900,000 tonnes in 2006. Around 70% of the plants use sawmill by-products, such as sawdust, and the rest use low quality round wood. The bulk — 75% — of the pellets are used in the heating market, for the residential sector and also for use in combined heat and power (CHP) plants.

Pellets are not, however, used for co-firing in power generation although Germanmade pellets are exported to other European countries, such as the Netherlands, where co-firing is supported by government subsidies.

‘Even without a domestic industrial market, this is a good time to be a pellet producer in Germany,’ says a spokeswoman for the industry trade body DEPV. ‘Capacity for pellet production is increasing to an

Biogas plants in Germany

expected 3.3 million tonnes in 2013,’ she adds, pointing out that more pellets are being used in large-scale heating and CHP plants.

Building export pellet capacity in the US One of the biggest names in the German pellet industry is also known on the international market. German Pellets was founded in 2005 by husband and wife team Peter and Anne Leibold. Eight years on and the Wismar-headquartered group is now one of the largest pellet producers in the world, with a total capacity of more than 2 million tonnes.

It operates 14 mills across Europe and has just opened its first mill in the US wood belt, the 500,000 tonnes per year plant in Woodville, Texas with the pellets exported via

Biogas plants in Germany Source: German Biogas Association

Expensive biogas producers may be under pressure but other biomass industries, including wood pellets, are faring well.

Domestic consumption has been stimulated by the Market Incentive Programme (MAP) and the Renewable Energies Heat Act. This legal framework has stimulated one of the largest and fastest markets for wood pellets in the world. According to an IEA report of December 2011, there are 63 production plants in Germany with a capacity of 3.2 million tonnes,

Fuel of the future? It’s a good time to be in the pellet business in Germany says the DEPV

the deepwater port of Port Arthur on the Gulf of Mexico.

Construction is also expected to start soon on a second plant, a 1 million tonne per year facility in northern Louisiana, which is expected online in the second quarter of 2014.

The company, which in 2011 raised €80 million through a bond issue, is directing new investment towards the US because of the quality and accessibility of the fast-growing feedstock compared to high priced European forestry.

The company supplies three different customer groups: big European utilities, mainly in the UK and Benelux, for power generation, with the pellets supplied under longterm contract; medium-sized commercial and municipal customers, like breweries, hospitals and schools, for heat and CHP; and finally private households for central heating and pellet stoves.

There are historic reasons for this customer mix, explains Anne Leibold, with the customer base largely dictated by the location of the mill: ‘The mills in the centre of Germany could not supply the big utilities in the UK for logistical reasons.’

While this diverse customer base helps to derisk the business model and provides higher price coverage, it also brings its own challenges.

‘With domestic customers the supply side can be up and down depending on the season and you also have to be active with marketing and branding to be close to your customer,’ she explains.

The pellet market is growing in Europe as medium-sized commercial businesses and householders switch from expensive fuel oil. ‘It’s favourable to change to wood pellets and this is a growing market for us,’ she adds.

Currently, there are no signs of German utilities converting to pellet-fired power generation however, so the output from German Pellets’ new facilities in Texas

Source: German Biogas Association

Bioenergy Insight

July/August 2013 • 47

Bioenergy bioenergy in Germany and Louisiana will be headed to the UK and Benelux.

Indeed German utility RWE Innogy, which has operations across Europe, is retreating from biomass-based power generation. A spokesman for RWE Innogy told Bioenergy Insight: ‘Earlier this year we said that biomass is not a core activity for RWE. We have two main power plants under construction, in Scotland and Sicily, and we will finish those projects but we will not invest any further in biomass power plants due to the market situation and the difficulties Europe faces.’

But with co-firing not supported in Germany, the company decided its biomass operations were no longer core, selling stakes in a number of small biomass power stations to another German company in Q1 2013.

‘The overall climate means there is less money to spend on renewables so you really have to focus on the things you think are most efficient from an economic point of view and most profitable. For us that is on and offshore wind and our existing hydro assets,’ explains the spokesman.

‘This is the climate we are living in at the moment.’

Watching the policy-makers Germany’s experiment of greening its economy without reliance on nuclear power is being watched carefully by governments and energy pundits around the world.

48 • July/August 2013

Key legislation underpinning Germany’s renewables drive Legislation

When

Main provisions

Results

The Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG)

2000

Electricity produced from renewable sources enjoys guaranteed feed-in-tariffs and has priority connection to the grid.

There’s a mechanism to support investment in innovative technologies and improve efficiency.

The support is financed by a surcharge on consumers, which in 2013 increased to 5.3c per kwH, up from 3.5c per kWh in 2012

There has been huge growth in the share of renewables in the energy mix and a move towards a more decentralised energy model. The country is ahead of its Kyoto targets. The legislation has been much emulated around the world.

Critics, however, point to high energy bills for consumers and the need for huge investment in the grid to cope with the decentralised power production. A Government review of the surcharge and other provisions ahead of elections in September 2013 has introduced uncertainty about the future

The Renewable Heat Act (EEWärmeG)

2009

Requires developers of new buildings to either use renewable energies for heating or equally good energy-saving measures

Housebuilders have been split 50/50 between opting for renewable energy or improved insulation and district heating. Of the renewable technologies the most popular option was the heat pump (27%), solar (20%) and solid biofuels, mainly pellets (5-7%).

The Market Rebate Programme for Renewable Energies (MAP)

2000

The support in this programme was increased in August 2012: - increased minimum rates for investment grants – an increase of up to €400 - for the installation of biomass boilers with a thermal output up to 100 kW plus additional support when installed in combination with solar - increased support, from €500 to €750, for the installation or retrofitting of biomass systems to reduce emissions or improve efficiency in existing buildings - loans and repayment grants for biogas production pipelines become eligible again

To date, there has been much to praise with a strong contribution from renewable energy, a buoyant and innovative cleantech sector and an economy that remains the envy of the Eurozone. Yet the pressure on household incomes is a warning shot that the Energiewende, launched to much popular support, could face increasing opposition prompting politicians to lose their nerve. Changes to the EEG have already stalled growth in

the previously booming biogas sector and further planned proposals could spook potential investors and derail those ambitious green targets.

Indeed lawyers are already warming up for legal challenges to the proposed amendments to the EEG. ‘Regardless of the outcome of these legal actions, the government should keep in mind that the long-term damage to Germany’s renewable goals, caused

in particular by setting the legal precedent of changing the fixed statutory tariffs for existing installations, may outweigh the amendments’ short-term benefits,’ caution the legal team in Baker and Mckenzie’s German office. The energy revolution may yet have more challenges to come. l References

1 Compared to reference year 1990 2 Compared to reference year 2008

Bioenergy Insight

briquettes Bioenergy A Caribbean rum plantation slashed its energy costs after switching from fuel oil to briquettes

Rum with a twist

W

hile the rum production method at the St. Nicholas Abbey plantation in Barbados has not veered from tradition, its process has, and is today more eco-friendly. The boilers used in the distillery are no longer run on oil but with palm briquettes.

In order to run the machinery, a highenergy input is necessary. Until recently oil was used to heat the boilers and more than $45,000 (€34,000) was spent on heating costs a year due to this expensive fuel oil. This, however, was far too much for the company to remain competitive in the rum market.

This capital strain has since been reduced considerably after the plantation switched to fuelling its boilers with biomass briquettes.

Annual energy costs have been reduced to just $3,000 per year. The briquettes are made from waste deposited on the plantation’s floor every day, including palm fronds, trunks and other scrap wood.

This waste is gathered together and fed into the WEIMA WL 4 shredder, which reduces the material to an optimum size for the subsequent briquetting process. The woodchips are then conveyed to the WEIMA C 150 briquette press via a screw conveyor. Compact briquettes with 50mm diameter and high heating value can be produced using only pressure, meaning no adhesives are necessary in the process.

Shredding and briquetting this scrap wood benefits the plantation: it saves money on distillery heating costs, reduces voluminous wood scrap mountains and is advantageous for the environment as palm briquettes burn CO2-neautral, therefore fitting into the 400acre plantation’s sustainable concept. l

The St. Nicholas Abbey plantation

Palm briquettes made from the rum production process

For more information:

Visit www.weimaamerica.com

Bioenergy Insight

WEIMA WL 4 shredder

July/August 2013 • 49

Bioenergy briquettes The different technologies used to produce biomass briquettes and pucks

Making densified biomass fuels

T

here are three basic methods used to manufacture densified fuels from biomass materials.

These are extrusion, hydraulic compression and mechanical compression. All methods rely on the same basic technologies of permanently reducing the air space between the particles of the biomass, transforming loose particles into a dense, solid block.

Extrusion

Extrusion is the forcing of the biomass through a narrow passage (a die). This method of densification produces pellets, fuel logs and briquettes.

Briquettes made by extrusion are normally made of wood sawdust or wood waste.

The wood particles are fed to a hopper and then into a screw forcing the material

The moisture content of the biomass must be between 8 and 12%

50 • July/August 2013

through a die. The screw can be conical, therefore the reduction of volume is due to the progressive reduction in the diameter of the screw, or it can be cylindrical but with a progressive reduction of the pitch forming the helix of the screw.

With both techniques the material is progressively forced into a smaller space until, at the end of the screw, it is forced through an extrusion die. When the material exits the die it is in the shape of a continuous briquette and left to cool before being cut into desired lengths and made ready for packaging.

The efficiency of this process is low, as large amounts of energy are used (and lost) to overcome friction (material against the casing and the auger) rather than in the compression of the material itself.

Extrusion works well with certain species of wood and no so well with others unless lubricants, such as palm oil, or binders are added.

Hydraulic briquetting presses

Hydraulic compression is the confinement by means of pressure of a large amount of biomass into a small space (also called a die). Hydraulically operated briquetting machines are available in different shapes and sizes, with varying output usually lower than 1 tonne per hour. Compression pressures range from 700 to 1,750 Atm. There are two categories of hydraulic machines: a) Heavy duty, industrialtype machines used to manufacture fuel briquettes for the consumer market, or for the generation of space heat or power. b) Small, light duty machines mostly used to manufacture fuel briquettes for own use in small companies that generate biomass waste.

The compression process for both these types is relatively slow, with a transient from a fast initial reduction of volume at low pressure to a longer compression phase during which the pressure reaches its peak.

Each compression cycle takes between 10 and 25 seconds, depending on the amount of material loaded at each cycle and the required density of the finished briquette. A low amount of material, combined with a long cycle time and the highest pressure will produce the highest density,

and therefore the best quality briquette. However, since the cycle time does not change a lot with the amount of material loaded at each cycle, the manufacture of a high quality briquette penalises the output capacity of the system.

Mechanical briquetting presses Mechanical compression is the low pressure confinement of the biomass into a shape, or the reduction of the volume of the biomass by means of forcing the biomass into a progressively narrower space (medium pressure), or the reduction of volume by means of a dynamic impact and extremely high pressure on small amounts of biomass.

Mechanical briquetting machines are designed to manufacture briquettes comprising 100% biomass, with no addition of binders.

These are heavy duty machines that compress the biomass by means of a ram impacting on a small amount of material at a high speed into a die that has the shape of a mild cone. The die is open at the opposite end and the newly compressed material moves forward into a tight adjustable bushing that positively creates enough backpressure to allow the compression by the ram.

The compression pressure in these machines reaches the level of 2500 kg/cm2, the highest pressure of any other biomass densification system.

The drive system is efficient, with 98% of the energy from the main motor used in the compression. The energy of compaction, due to the friction

Bioenergy Insight

briquettes Bioenergy and pucks offer the highest return on investment than any other densified fuel based on the same type of biomass.

Costs and revenues

Briquetting plants have very low operating costs

between the biomass particles and fibres, turns entirely into heat, raising the temperature of the compressed biomass.

Lignin acts as the binder that keeps the briquette together.

The high temperature ‘melts’ the lignin when the material is under the highest pressure, restoring the broken chains of the lignin and helping it to re-polymerise, therefore binding the fibres and particles together. The temperature of the briquette must then be lowered to allow the lignin to harden and solidify. The best mechanical briquetters include a system to cool the compression head.

When the briquette exits the compression head its temperature is low enough to stabilise it. It takes a few more minutes for the briquette to cool down to a temperature where it becomes solid and fully stable and this is why these machines have a long straight cooling channel starting at the compression head and running all the

way to the point where the briquette is chopped or sawn to the desired length.

Briquettes and pucks Pucks are short disks of densified material. Due to their size, pucks are generally handled in bulk as they are easier to transport and handle compared to regular briquettes.

They can be shipped over long distances by truck, rail or sea. Pucks are characterised by the high density and the slow burning speed typical of briquettes, with the additional advantage that burning speed can be adjusted by controlling the puck’s length.

Both briquettes and pucks can be manufactured using a wide variety of combustible biomasses, with the only requirements being that the biomass must have moisture content between 8 and 12%, and the particle size must not exceed 16mm for best results.

When used to generate thermal energy, briquettes

Costs and revenues vary depending on the application, the cost of the raw material, the amount of preparation necessary, the market, the size and location of the operation and the number of days and hours worked in a year. The interesting part is the cost of running a briquetting plant in which high efficiency mechanical briquetting presses are installed.

Due to the efficiency and the relative simplicity of the equipment, the operating costs are very low. In particular, the cost of maintenance is limited to replacing inexpensive wear items and the cost of lubricants.

The downtime required for maintenance is in the range of a few hours annually.

Assuming a briquetting machine working 300 days/ year, two shifts of eight hours per day, approximate costs could be as below:

cost of distribution of the densified fuel or to generate fuel for own use, either space heating of process heat.

Medium machines are ideal to manufacture briquettes for the consumer market, or for own internal use, while large machines and plants using several machines in parallel are ideal to manufacture pucks for energy use.

While potential investors still need to prepare detailed plans to determine whether making briquettes or pucks is an alternative way to produce densified fuel, this is certainly one very attractive option.

Limited investments, large output capacities and low cost of operation are all factors worth further investigation. l Notes:

1 This includes: • All direct operating costs: energy, wear parts, consumables (lubricants).

• Equipment depreciation based on a three year payback, or equivalent leasing cost.

• Direct manpower to operate the briquetting line (considered at western countries labor cost).

The numbers do not include: • The cost of the raw material ready for briquetting, sized and dried.

• The cost of the space required by the operation.

Small machine

Output, tonne/hr

0.5 1.0 2.4

Energy and maintenance cost, €/tonne

6-8 5-6 4

Total cost, €/tonne (1)

35-40

From these numbers in the table it is evident that small machines are more suited for local markets with a low

Medium machine

25-30

Large machine

15-20

For more information:

This article was written by Giordano Checchi, CEO of Sunomi (www. sunomi-llc.com), exclusive distributor of Di Più briquetting systems in North America, www.di-piu.com

Biomasses Biomass materials suitable to make briquettes and pucks include: • Wood dust, sawdust, woodchips, virgin wood, recycled wood, demolition wood • Agrifibers like wheat straw, rice straw, hay, energy grasses (miscanthus, elephant grass, switchgrass), seed husks, corn cobs, corn stover, energy cane, sugarcane bagasse Bioenergy Insight

• Cotton shrubs, grapevine clippings, fruit tree clippings, coffee shrubs • Olive pits, peanut shells and all other types of nut shells • Tobacco waste, used coffee grinds, dried tomato vines • Recycled paper, cardboard, spent bank notes • Municipal solid waste • Dried animal droppings and dried sludge

from waste water treatment plants.

The preparation of the biomass for briquette densification varies depending on the material and the finished product that is being made. But the aim is always to eliminate contaminants such as metals, stones, sand and dirt, reduce particle size to less than 15-20 mm, and reduce the moisture content to 10% +/-2%.

July/August 2013 • 51

Bioenergy update

This degression will not stand: update

T

he last issue of Bioenergy Insight described how the new budget control mechanism under the UK Renewable Heat Incentive works. It also predicted that in the immediate future the mechanism would be unlikely to trigger reductions of tariffs (‘degression’).

The article coincided with the government’s announcement that, contrary to expectation, the tariff for medium biomass installations would be degressed by 5%, effective from July.

In short, the budget control mechanism works by setting quarterly trigger amounts for each tariff. These triggers are then compared with the expected subsidy spend over the following 12 months.

The calculation of expected

subsidy spend is made by taking accredited installations and installations for which

million.1 It appears that the government’s calculation exceeded the prediction

The budget control mechanism works by setting quarterly trigger amounts for each tariff applications have been submitted, and multiplying them with the relevant tariff and expected heat load over the following twelve months.

For medium biomass, the government calculated this expected spend figure to be £22.6 million (€26 million), just enough to breach the budget trigger of £20.1

in last issue’s article due to two main factors: • The government had included some 60 preliminary accreditation installations — a 20% difference which in itself sufficed to breach the budget trigger • It seems to have used a particularly high

www.di-piu.com

assumed average heat load in its calculation, again contributing to the degression trigger being exceeded.

Preliminary accreditation numbers had previously not been shown in the official RHI statistics, nor does preliminary accreditation guarantee getting a particular tariff level, raising questions about the decision to include them. Equally, heat load figures that exceed those typically seen in the market cast doubts on the quality of the data used. Following the degression announcement, participants from the renewable heat industry have been in discussion with the government both with regards to these and broader policy issues, including whether the trigger levels have been set too conservatively given the headroom offered by the overall RHI budget for 2013-14 of £251 million.

A government consultation that, among other things, covered the budget management mechanism has just closed, and the industry awaits follow-up from the government on whether the degression system will be adjusted as part of this process. l For more information:

This article was written by Erich Scherer, assistant director for renewable energy finance at BDO, www.bdo.co.uk

briquettes and pucks: your €fficient densified fuel 52 • July/August 2013

Reference:

1 See www.gov.uk/government/ statistical-data-sets/rhi-mechanismfor-budget-managementestimated-commitments for details on RHI degression.

Bioenergy Insight

briquettes Bioenergy Briquetting has allowed one wood processing firm to optimise its strategy for increasing value and has led to the creation of a new line of business

Wood briquettes with an innovative form

R

obeta OHG operates a saw mill in Brandenburg, Germany. The company processes around 280,000m3 of pine wood a year, which is sourced exclusively in the forests of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Instead of selling on loose woodchips to converters as in the past, this medium-sized company from Uckermark now presses the chips into wood briquettes, which are then sold directly to the end user as well as trading firms.

Complete utilisation

Robeta can produce roughly 3 tonnes of wood briquettes per hour on the three RUF briquetting presses which it currently owns.

Space has already been planned for a possible fourth press

The waste wood material from the saw and planing mill was to be completely utilised with an end goal of firing it in a block heat and power plant.

This would strengthen the company’s position in what is such a competitive market. The biomass would be co-fired with rough residual bark left over from the processing of logs, while pieces smaller than 4cm were processed to bark mulch.

This renewable block plant generates 1.4MW of electricity and 6.9MW of heat. Part of this heat is used in the drying chambers for sawn timber but, more importantly, it became possible to dry woodchips — an important requirement for Robeta as the residual moisture content of the chips exceeded the required 12%. This meant briquetting was out of the question.

‘That 12% figure is the be all and end all in briquetting because you cannot have any

damp material if you want to produce solid briquettes with a high heat value and a low ash level,’ explains Keven Benthin, department leader of briquetting at Robeta.

Bioenergy Insight

USP In 2010 Robeta acquired three briquetting presses from Zaisertshofen, Germany-based briquetting press manufacturer RUF, which had just developed a new form of briquette called the RUF Triple.

Instead of classic smooth blocks with rounded edges, RUF Triple are larger briquettes with two deep grooves, dividing them into three segments. A characteristic of this form is that straight after the pressing process, the briquette can be divided into three segments with the aid of a breaking device. These parts can then be used in industrial ovens which have mechanical feed systems.

Robeta management, however, chose the RUF Triple format briquettes for a different reason: it wanted to offer customers a renewable fuel immediately identifiable as being different from the normal classic briquette or the round briquettes with holes.

With this in mind, Robeta does not break the briquettes on-site but instead sells them whole.

In addition, the unbroken briquettes can be stacked in the stove in such a way that the grooves lay one on top of the other, so creating a chimney effect in the stack and increasing the burning efficiency.

Roberta says demand is high for these unique briquettes, so much so that its three fully automatic briquetting presses often have to operate around the clock in order to meet requirements.

‘The briquettes make sense ecologically because

they are CO2 neutral. They only release the amount of CO2 which the tree had previously absorbed through photosynthesis,’ says Edgar Rockel a founder of Robeta.

Over 2,800kg/hr The three RUF 1100 briquetting presses were ready for operation in 2010. Each of the three systems can press 940kg of briquettes per hour, giving a total of 2,800kg. The presses operate with a system of two pressing chambers. When a briquette is pressed in one of the chambers the form changes and the finished briquette is ejected while in the second chamber the next briquette is already being pressed.

The system has a motor capacity of 55kW and the specific pressure is 1700kg/cm2.

This high pressure causes the lignin which is contained in the wood to act as a natural

July/August 2013 • 53

Bioenergy briquettes than 8% and and the band will be slightly accelerated.

This process uses not only the saw chips but also the heat produced by the power plant. A 500m³ tower silo is connected so that the chips can be ‘called’ to the briquetting presses as required. The chips are transported to the presses by

augers from a distributer silo.

Conveyor bands bring the briquettes from the presses to the packaging area where they are double stacked as a first step. The shrinking foil is then applied to wrap each packet of six briquettes. The only manual step in the process is when the stacks of 96 of these 10kg packages are placed on a pallet which is then transported using a fork lift.

On average Robeta’s three presses operate 12 hours daily, and in winter they normally operate around the clock. The amount produced is naturally dependent on the demand for briquettes which depends on how long and hard the winter has been. Robeta can exploit price fluctuations for loose chips; if the price falls, more chips are used in the company’s briquette production. If the price rises then a larger amount will be sold on to converters who use the chips to produce plywood or cellulose. Robeta therefore utilises the chips to its best commercial advantage.

At the moment the capacity is between 10,000 and 15,000 tonnes of wood briquettes per year.

But there is no need to set a limit as during the planning and installation phase of the existing systems a possible expansion was kept deliberately in mind. The briquetting hall and the chip drying area as well as the chip silos and the conveyor belts all possess the required capacity for expansion. l

to 280,000m3 per year are electronically measured, debarked and separated according to orders. And in order to be able to react quickly and flexibly to customer demand, an additional 6,00010,000m3 of logs are kept permanently on stock.

The range of products

varies from simple lumber such as boards, slats and planks from 3 to 5m in length, timber beams, log length timber and shuttering, to high quality construction timber. Robeta’s services also include chemical penetration in enclosed chambers and wood drying.

The wood briquettes are fully automatically transported from the presses to the packaging area on conveyor bands

binding material resulting in no need for additives.

The pine wood briquettes have a density of around 1kg/dm3 and can achieve a heating value of up to 5.22kWh/kg. The heating value of the wood briquettes is comparable to that of brown coal briquettes (5.6kWh/kg).

Automatic process It is key for the automatic packaging line that the briquettes are lying straight on the conveyor band, allowing for trouble-free stacking and packaging. RUF therefore developed a pneumatic gripper system with which each individual briquette can be brought on to the conveyor band in a controlled manner.

The complete briquetting path at Robeta is fully

The wood briquettes are double stacked, fixed and wrapped with shrinking foil

automatic. The saw chips come to the band dryer with a moisture content between 50 and 60%. The band dryer uses the heat produced by the company’s own biomass power plant.

The speed of the band dryer is controlled by a moisture content measurement taken at the end of the drying path; if the target of 8% is exceeded the drying band will be slowed down, less

Expansion

Robeta Holz - a guide Robeta Holz is a

medium-sized sawmill with its headquarters and two production plants located in and around Milmersdorf in the region of Uckermark, Brandenburg.

The wood processed by the company mirrors the mix of pine wood found in the forests of Brandenburg and

54 • July/August 2013

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: 70% mark pine and the rest made up of Douglas fir, fir and larch. Most of its customers come from the region, but a third of its products are delivered to Poland, France, Denmark and some even go further afield.

In order to utilise the logs to their optimum, up

Bioenergy Insight

pellets Bioenergy An objective evaluation considering CO2 emissions and energy input when using wood as fuel

Which drying technology is the most suitable for pellet production?

T

he way of sawdust drying and the respective energy input play a decisive role in the pellet production process. Economical and ecological aspects are to be taken into account to determine the most appropriate drying technology. This means that the primary energy consumption and the produced CO2 emissions influence the decision what drying method to use when wood is used as fuel.

The energy-based production costs can be specified on the basis of the energy input. In this regard, the type of energy carrier used is relevant too.

CO2 emissions represent a cost factor to some purchasers of industrial pellets in Europe as well which is due to the trade in CO2 certificates. Power plants with a low primary energy input and low CO2 emissions hold clear competitive advantages and are thus future-oriented.

Energy input during pellet production Figure 1 shows the general amount of energy consumed when manufacturing 1 tonne of pellets from wet sawdust (50% water content).

It is approximately 17.5% referring to the amount of energy (lower heating value) contained in the pellet.

The biggest proportion (83%) of the energy is required for drying. This figure, however, neglects the fact that the required electrical power is also

Bioenergy Insight

Consumption for one metric tonne ofpellets pellets Consumption one metric tonne Consumption forfor one metric tonne of of pellets

Power; 136kWh; Power; 136kWh; Power; 136kWh; 16% 16%16%

Diesel; 9.8kWh; Diesel; 9.8kWh; Diesel; 9.8kWh; 1% 1% 1%

Primary energy for Primary energy Primary energy forfor drying; 713.6 kWh; drying; 713.6 kWh; drying; 713.6 kWh; 83% 83%83%

Figure 1: Calculated energy input for the production of 1 tonne of pellets from sawdust

Primary energy for one metric tonne ofpellets pellets Primary energy one metric tonne Primary energy forfor one metric tonne of of pellets Diesel asprimary primary energy; Diesel energy; Diesel as as primary energy; 10.89kWh; 10.89kWh; 10.89kWh; 1% Power asprimary primary energy; Power energy; 1% 1% Power as as primary energy; 323.81kWh; 323.81kWh; 323.81kWh; 31% 31%31%

Primary head energy; Primary head energy; Primary head energy; 713.60kWh; 713.60kWh; 713.60kWh; 68% 68%68%

Figure 2: Calculated primary energy input for pellet production (42% primary energy efficiency according to UBA 2012)

Energy costs for one metric tonne ofpellets pellets Energy costs one metric tonne Energy costs forfor one metric tonne of of pellets Diesel; 1.2€; Diesel; 1.2€; Diesel; 1.2€; 5% 5% 5%

Power; Power; Power; 12.8€; 12.8€; 12.8€; 55% 55%55%

Primary Primary Primary energy for energy energy forfor drying; drying; drying; 9.2€; 9.2€; 9.2€; 40% 40%40%

Figure 3: Calculated energy costs for pellet production from sawmill by-products (values from 2009)

produced from primary energy.

If the overall energy input is examined in terms of primary energy input, Figure 2 results.

If the electrical power requirement is measured as primary energy too, conversion losses are to be considered and the respective proportion of primary energy increases from 16 to 31%.

This demonstrates that it can be reasonable to use residues from the pellet production process and forest wood residues in an own power production facility. The ratio of heat and power generation is ideal in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant.

When analysing the costs for energy purchases, it becomes even clearer how interesting a CHP plant is. Figure 3 shows the costs of an average sized pellet production plant (output of 120,000t/a).

The electricity costs represent the biggest cost block of the energy input.

It is, however, disregarded that the electricity price increases by about 5% per year.

Thus, the electricity costs grow more strongly by about 3% since the cost for heat generation only increase by 2% (price increase of wood).

Comparison of drying technologies Besides determining the standard parameters such as investment and operating costs, a large-scale evaluation is reasonable to find the appropriate drying technology

July/August 2013 • 55

Bioenergy pellets for the respective plant site. For example, it should be evaluated if an own power production facility is economically reasonable.

When power is generated in a biomass CHP plant, the choice of drying technologies, however, is limited. Low temperature drying systems in the form of belt dryers can only be used economically in CHP plants. In contrast to that it is possible to use a directly or an indirectly-fired drum dryer or a tube bundle dryer for pellet production plants without a combined heat and power plant.

Moreover, the amount of energy required for low

Heat requirement for low temperature drying in central Europe 1,25

1,2

20,0

1,15 15,0 1,1 10,0 1,05 Annual temperatures in °C

5,0

heat requirement for water evaporation in MW/t

1

0,0

0,95

Figure 4: Example for the heat requirement of a belt dryer

drum dryer. However, the profitability of a belt dryer combined with a power plant increases significantly, if: 1. The electricity costs and/

Comparing CO2 emissions It is reasonable to examine the various drying technologies and the respective emissions.

The advantages and disadvantages of a belt dryer and a directly-fired drum dryer

Belt dryer

Directly-fired drum dryer

+ Drying at low temperatures, i.e. no + Exhaust air cleaning by means of WESP and RTO discoloration and reduction in quality possible of dry product + No insertion of pollutants from combustion (gases and ashes) into dry product

+ Lower raw material consumption for heat generation

+ Lower fire risk inside dryer and thus higher dryer availability

— Higher fire risk inside dryer and thus higher risk of plant shut-downs

+ No use of fossil energies for exhaust air cleaning

— High use of fossil energies for exhaust air cleaning

— Due to high exhaust air flows no — Drying at high temperatures, i.e. risk of exhaust air cleaning possible, thus discoloration and reduction in quality of dry product emission of low temperature VOC — Higher raw consumption for heat — Insertion of pollutants from combustion generation (gases and ashes) into dry product temperature drying is slightly higher and depends strongly on the outside temperature: • The energy consumption of a directly-fired drum dryer is at about 0.9MWh/t of water evaporation.

• Depending on the climatic conditions a belt dryer requires between 0.7 and 1.5 MWh/t of water evaporation.

Figure 4 shows the heat requirement of a belt dryer at a European plant site in dependence of the outside temperature.

At first sight, the belt dryer seems to have minor disadvantages compared to the directly-fired

56 • July/August 2013

or feed-in tariffs are high and a power plant can thus be operated economically 2. The quality of the dry sawdust and the ash content of the sawdust (after drying) are relevant for the use of the pellets 3. The emissions of the directly-fired drum dryer have to be reduced by means of an RTO (regenerative thermal oxidation) using fossil gas.

4. If one of the aforementioned aspects applies, the installation of a biomass CHP plant for own power generation has to be checked thoroughly.

A comparison reveals that the CO2 emissions of a belt dryer with power generation from biomass are significantly lower than those of a directly-fired drum dryer with RTO and power supply from the public grid.

When comparing the CO2 emissions of a drum dryer with those of a belt dryer and own power generation from biomass with grid power supply, it becomes clear that the emissions in the case of the option ‘belt dryer plus own power generation’ are significantly lower. Instead of releasing CO2 emissions of 117 kg/tonne of pellets, only about 3kg CO2/tonne of pellets are

to be expected for the option ‘CHP plant plus belt dryer’.

If drying takes place in a biomass-fired drum dryer, CO2 emissions only result from using liquid gas for RTO operation. The installation of an RTO is required in the US for specific tree species (e.g. Southern Yellow Pine).

The CO2 emissions resulting from the wood used to generate energy for drying have been neglected in this evaluation.

As it is impossible to use heat in form of low temperature, additional CO2 is emitted due to using non-regenerative primary energies to generate power for the drying plants.

Summary The aforementioned considerations have to be taken into account when making a decision on the appropriate drying technology. Short-sighted plant concepts will turn out to be economically inefficient as soon as they have to compete with other concepts benefitting from low primary energy input and cost-effective regenerative energies. Moreover, price increases of fossil energies range between 5 and 8% per year, whereas regenerative energies only have a 3 to 4% increase per year. Thus, price increases have to be considered for any profitability analysis.

To conclude, a thorough profitability analysis is a key element in the decision whether to build a pellet production plant with or without energy production.

The drying technology chosen plays a decisive role in this regard, since it seriously influenced the energy costs, which represent about 10 to 25% of the production costs.

As a consequence, an objective and supplierindependent party should make an informed decision on the best drying technology to be used. l For more information:

This article was written by Dr Gregor Rinke, CEO and president of Seeger Green Energy; gr@seeger.ag

Bioenergy Insight

boilers Bioenergy James Barrett finds out about a Danish biomass technology that is going down a storm in the US

Maine attraction

A

small invasion has taken place in the US as Danish biomass boiler technology provider Lin-Ka Energy has supplied two installations — one into Canada and one at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, US. Dave Schmucker, president of Biomass Briquette Systems (BBS), which acts as the North American distributor for Lin-Ka, explains why these boilers caught his eye many years ago.

‘My colleagues and I came across these Lin-Ka models when we were on a business trip in Europe and they are not anything like the systems we have here in North America. It provides a multi‐fuel boiler that is fully automated, low maintenance and offers a footprint that is much smaller than typical boilers found of comparable British thermal units (BTU), which is a traditional unit of energy and the amount needed to heat one pound of water by 1˚F.’ Lin‐Ka began business back in 1979 as a way of lowering heating costs for large estates and farms due to the oil crisis of that time, before going on to install over 3,500 systems throughout Europe. It started with baled straw, which is renowned as one of the hardest feed stocks to successfully burn.

‘This is due to it having a lower melting point than wood, which leads to aggressive chlorine gases that forced corrosion within the boiler and stack, for example,’ Schmucker adds.

‘Lin-Ka adapted its systems with special alloys to control

Bioenergy Insight

Lin-Ka fans are regulated with frequency converters

combustion and prevent corrosion. In fact, Germany has since passed an emissions standard for burning wheat straw to prevent poorly constructed installations polluting the air with particulates and black smoke.’

He adds that it is ‘very tough’ to comply with such a standard as particulates are low and require bag filters, plus the conflicting CO and NOx levels need to be taken into account: ‘A high combustion temperature gives low CO but high NOx values, while low combustion temperatures has the opposite effect. The German levels are at a stage where you need to have a narrow window for combustion temperatures in order to meet both required CO and NOx values.’

Lin-Ka allows its boilers to meet such stringent requirements by having its fans regulated with frequency

converters and using ‘perfect’ straw feedstock at all times. Its products can also burn woodchips, pellets and other types of agricultural feedstocks such as miscanthus, nut shells and tomato vines.

To comply with the North American market, the two Lin‐Ka systems use an ASME certified boiler and a UL listed electrical control panel.

Most standard hot water and steam boiler sizes can be accommodated for, but larger or non‐standard sizes along with high moisture content boilers are available.

Educating Maine Andrew Jacobs, director of facilities management at the university, oversaw the Lin‐Ka pellet boiler it installed last year.

‘Initially the automated features of the Lin‐Ka

system were important in our decision process,’ Jacobs says. ‘But, over the course of five months, we found the automation that the system provided was twice as important as we had originally thought.

The ignition, water cooled grate, soot blasters, automated ash removal and the features in the control system that control the combustion provided everything we needed.’

The university pellet boiler showed that it burned 107 tonnes of pellets for those five months to produce 100 gallons of ash. The boiler only had to be cleaned once about halfway through the time frame, too. Energy expenses showed that the Lin‐Ka biomass boiler fuel expense was less than 50% of what they had been paying for heating oil prior to installation. l

July/August 2013 • 57

Bioenergy pumps

Waste tomato leaves get new lease of life

T

omato leaves definitely would not be the feedstock of choice for trying to generate headline figures of biogas.

But, when you have some 16 pallets (400kg per pallet) of tomato leaves to dispose of every day, then utilising the heat and electricity from them makes perfect sense — compared to what used to be a disposal cost of around £100,000 (€116,000) annually, not to mention sending 2,500 tonnes of waste per year to landfill.

For the past five years, converting waste tomato leaves into a more than useful resource has been a labour of love for a major producer in the north west of England.

‘This is still primarily an R&D project’, says Paul Davies from pump and mixer manufacturer Landia. ‘Our

Liquid from macerated tomato leaves on its way to make biogas

customer has not set out to simply try and squeeze as much electricity out of everything that they could.

They are keen to pursue a self-sufficient, sustainable model, growing their own

Pallets of leaves like these used to go to landfill

58 • July/August 2013

colony of bacteria to see how its full potential can be realised, rather than just looking for short-term gain by adding materials that almost immediately guarantee gas, such as slurry.

This isn’t favourable anyway at the location because of biosecurity issues.’

An R&D site maybe, and a waste product that certainly is not the most conducive feedstock for high levels of biogas, but methane is already being successfully extracted and reused to produce considerable amounts of electricity and heat for the site’s extensive greenhouses.

The company is also close to producing a valuable revenue stream in an enzyme-rich fertiliser that works well on grass, as well as an eco-fuel, with hopes to also use the CO2 produced during the AD process to enhance growth of the tomato plants.

Within the UK’s horticultural industry, the tomato growers were the pioneers of combined heat and power (CHP), generating their own

Bioenergy Insight

pumps Bioenergy electricity and selling it back to the national grid to power the majority of the local village in an environmentally efficient way since 1998.

Today, all of the heat produced is used on-site, so there are no buying-in costs, nor climate levy payments to be made. Nothing is wasted because any heat that cannot be used immediately is stored as hot water in 600,000 litre insulated tanks for later use.

The masses of thick tomato leaves first have to be fed into a hopper, from where they are chopped by a macerator. Up to 40% dry matter, the leaves have a thick consistency, so pre-treatment is vital. At this stage, a stainless steel 5.5kW MPTKR chopper pump made by Landia is used to break down the organic plant material in a reception tank, otherwise its natural healing ability would make it go solid.

‘Getting the leaves into

the system in a way that you can get them to do what you want them to do has been the biggest challenge,’ adds Davies. ‘Our customer has wanted to try and understand what happens to the plant at different phases and times.

This is not a typical sludgelike digestate you find at most anaerobic digestion systems where, in some cases, there seems to be a very nonscientific “chuck everything in” approach. And there was no wish to go down the route of the European biogas model, which does not fit the UK experience. Everyone has had to be extremely patient.

Record-breaking gas yields are not going to happen here.’

However, this definitely is not going to be one of the increasing number of AD plants that are finding feedstock difficult or increasingly expensive to obtain. Gas produced from

the plant currently provides around 10% of the energy needed for the 2.5MW operation (enough to power around 2,500 homes), equating to approximately 12m3 per tonne of tomato leaf.

After being physically reduced by the macerator, tomato leaf plant matter is then transferred to a buffer tank for 24 hours, where it is heated and also agitated

by a 3kW DG Landia pump to enhance the enzymebreakdown process. Careful fine tuning has gradually reduced this retention time from 14 days to just seven.

The vivid green liquid is then regularly transferred into a four-tank batch loading system where solids are further reduced in digesters by small (just 0.75kW) Landia transfer pumps (one in each tank). l

ADDING VALUE Create more benefit from wood chips and other organic residues!

Hydraulic RUF Briquetting Systems

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The on-site digesters where solids are further reduced

Bioenergy Insight

www.briquetting.com RUF_O_14_BioE_90x190_oM_GB.indd 1

July/August 2013 • 5910:10 05.06.13

Bioenergy pumps As bioenergy and waste recycling technologies continue to advance they place new demands on the equipment involved

Driving pumping technology to new heights

T

he influence of new environmental technologies on modern pumping equipment can be seen in many different industries, none more so than in the field of biogas production. The thermal hydrolysis processes used here typically involves heating and processing sludge collected from wastewater treatment plants in order to liberate biogas which can then be used as a fuel to generate power and heat. The pumps that can be chosen to convey the sludge through the hydrolysis processes are progressing cavity (PC) pumps, and they are chosen with good reason.

The chosen one A PC pump features a single helix design rotor which revolves eccentrically within a double helix design stator.

This creates a series of evenly spaced cavities between the rotor and stator, which fill with the pumped media. As the rotor revolves, the cavities progress smoothly and evenly towards the discharge end of the pump, carrying the pumped media with them.

The cavities can usually handle suspended solids with ease. Control is easily achieved, as the discharge capacity is reliably linked to the speed of rotation and the

60 • July/August 2013

operating pressure, while the positive displacement action allows a PC pump to deliver a continuous and non-pulsing flow of waste slurry into the biogas production process.

The PC pump can also be installed vertically or horizontally, making it ideal for handling waste slurries, especially where suction lift capabilities are required. Low running speed capabilities make it suitable for use with the type of aggressive media used in biogas applications, and it is suitable for both low and high flow applications. Additionally, it can eliminate the need for a series of pumps to provide the increased pressure handling capabilities required for pumping over long distances.

New challenges With so many advantages to offer biogas production applications, it is not surprising that PC pumps are often a first choice technology. However, as they began to be installed in more and more biogas applications, the challenges that thermal hydrolysis imposed on a PC pump started to become increasingly apparent.

One of the chief culprits was the high temperatures which can be required to generate a high biogas yield — often between 70 and 130°C. Some PC pump manufacturers responded

While the basic principles behind today’s pumps have remained unchanged for centuries, they continue to adapt to meet today’s new demands

rapidly to this situation and began working with their customers to develop products which satisfied the particular requirements of biogas applications — an ongoing process which has challenged engineers.

Although PC pumps have long been used in a wide variety of demanding applications — everything from chemicals and pharmaceuticals through to pulp and paper production — biogas and other environmental technologies are a rapidly developing area of application where new lessons are being learned all the time. Biogas production methods continue to evolve and place fresh demands on PC pumps, which in turn mean that the manufacturers must innovate and develop their products as quickly and effectively as possible

in order to maintain pace.

Fortunately, the behaviour and characteristics of various materials used in PC pump construction were well understood. Drawing on this knowledge, and that gained from using PC pumps in other demanding applications, it was not long before some manufacturers began to offer PC pumps which could deliver a longer operating life than their conventional counterparts.

Advanced rubber compounds were developed which would allow the stator to better resist harsh temperatures and pressures without swelling. New patented fixing techniques were used to ensure that bond between the stator and the outer casing remained strong and reliable, while rotor geometries were redesigned so that they were

Bioenergy Insight

pumps Bioenergy

developing pumps for biogas applications are certainly not resting on their laurels. Rather they are constantly monitoring, developing, improving and testing their products.

consuming and frustrating process, they have produced a new generation of PC pumps which can be stripped, unblocked and reassembled insitu. This allows maintenance times to be cut to a fraction of what they have previously been. Returning the pump rapidly to operation means that production is increased, biogas yields are boosted and the payback time on the pump itself is reduced accordingly.

Today’s PC pumps can also be partnered with macerators which ensure that any solids are reduced to the required size before they enter a thermal hydrolysis process. This helps increase the efficiency of the pump, protects it from blockages and also ensures a consistent flow of sludge into the process.

Maceration and maintenance

Light at the end of the tunnel

Of course the performance of a pump is not the only consideration, and so some manufacturers have also turned their attention to the subject of maintenance, with impressive results.

Recognising that removing a pump from a thermal hydrolysis line can be a time-

The pump manufacturers’ efforts mean that there is even light at the end of the tunnel for biogas producers who are currently using PC pumps which might not really be up to the task.

Some manufacturers are now offering replacement spares which are designed for thermal

The problems of high temperatures and especially aggressive liquids have been overcome in the new generation of progressing cavity pumps designed for biogas production applications

better suited to handling the high solids content found in thermal hydrolysis processes.

These new developments were tested on real-world applications. Many were found to be successful solutions to the previous problems, and the durability and performance of PC pumps increased accordingly. Yet while the result is now a new generation of PC pumps which can offer practical and reliable biogas production solutions, it is important to remember that this is merely the start of the process. Those manufacturers who took an early lead in

hydrolysis applications, but which can be retrofitted to existing pumps. This allows the operator to bring their equipment into line with the demands of the application at relatively modest cost.

Although the basic principles behind today’s PC pumps remain unchanged, the pumps themselves are being developed at a rapid pace to meet the particular demands of thermal hydrolysis applications.

Environmental technologies are still a relatively new sector, and as they continue to grow at a rapid rate they will continue to place new demands on equipment manufacturers, especially in terms of complexity, flexibility and more efficient performance.

These demands will also be accompanied by increasingly stringent industry regulations and standards governing such areas as environmental protection and health and safety. All of which begs the question, what exciting and innovative developments we will see in the future? l For more information:

This article was written by Simon Lambert of NOV Mono, www.mono-pumps.com

Stay informed For news on the latest plants and regulations please subscribe free of charge to our electronic weekly newsletter: www.biofuels-news.com/newsletter.html

If you would like your company’s news to feature in this please contact: margaret@biofuels-news.com (+44 20 8687 4126) Bioenergy Insight

July/August 2013 • 61

Bioenergy pumps Pump manufacturer Borger explains the different equipment needed depending on the feedstock being processed

Pump size dilemma

W

hether trying to harness 1 tonne of waste potatoes for a biogas plant or 20 tonnes, it is the size not the quantity that will dictate the type of equipment that is required.

‘At Borger we have a product portfolio that can suit every AD feedstock from 2 tonnes to 20 tonnes per hour at today’s super plants,’ explains Borger’s MD David Brown. ‘But we are receiving an increasing number of enquiries from small owner operators who perhaps only want to process two to five tonnes — per week.

‘Those who have perhaps carried out tests in a laboratory with something bulky like potatoes say that they only want a small 2” pump, a 2” macerator and a small auger feeder. Understandably they have a low volume and are trying to keep their costs down.

Their mind is very much on the basis that industrial-size equipment isn’t required for this application, but it is.’

AD plants using a less bulky feedstock such as tomatoes will be at an advantage, as will those who choose pre-

Even with low volumes, a solids and substrate feeder is required for most AD applications

processed material, but away from the lab, scaling equipment down to suit lower volumes of waste should only go so far. Sufficient power to feed it, macerate and pump it is still required.

The 20 grand gap ‘The industry has reached a stage where we appear to have a ‘£20,000 (€23,200) gap,’ Brown says.

‘Enquiries we receive from small-scale projects, often experimental sites, often seem to reckon on a figure of around £5,000 for their pump and

macerator needs. The reality is more like £16,000 for a basic entry-level system, but if you are really going to attack this properly and sensibly, then for an auger feeder, an effective macerator, decent pump, controls, skid-mounted, delivered, commissioned — and work with a reputable company that isn’t just going to walk away or lose interest the second you have a problem — then a figure of around £25,000 is far more realistic.’

In the UK, Brown is among many who would like to see more of the cooperative community model that is so prevalent in Germany where farms and those with other feedstock work together.

There is shared investment in good quality technology and then shared benefits of what they have made commercially viable for all concerned, including the pump supplier.

The front-end of the AD plant is crucial

Continuously displacing most solids and substrates for AD requires industrial-type equipment

62 • July/August 2013

Borger has several successful installations to its name. ‘The front-end of the AD plant is crucial,’ he explains. ‘It

must be able to handle the feedstock in its raw format or you are going nowhere fast — so build the plant accordingly and it will work well’.

The Carrigbyrne Farmhouse Cheese Company did just this at its AD plant in County Wexford, Ireland, where it brought in a pump and a macerator from Borger to help process slurry and food waste.

Borger had to guarantee that its pump and macerator would meet the specific EU Animal By-Products legislation for a maximum particle size of 12mm for treatment of waste at 70°C for 1 hour.

The anaerobic digester at Carrigbyrne’s 198-acre dairy farm now produces 1,100m3 of biogas per day, supplying power for the cheese making process, to the farm and to the Irish national grid.

‘Typically, size requirements are dictated to us’, says Brown. ‘Size 12, 8 or 6mm, but our advice would be to opt for a pump that can handle 20-30mm because even if the waste has been through a plate or multispindled macerator, it is only macerated in one direction.

Away from the lab, an AD plant is warts and all.

‘We’re told far too often that ‘our feedstock is nice clean food waste’, but the fact that canteen waste, for example, will inevitably contain more than the odd knife and fork, never seems to reach the specification sheet. So if your pumping and macerating equipment isn’t industrially robust enough to cope, you will very possibly have an AD system that breaks down and doesn’t work properly. There are enough of those already’. l

Bioenergy Insight

harvesting Bioenergy James Barrett discovers a different way of harvesting woody biomass which differs from a standard grapple and cutter

Grappling with wood gathering

T

hree years ago a new technology for biomass harvesting was introduced to the market by Netherlands-based Gierkink Machine Techniek (GMT), borne from a simple desire.

GMT’s idea was that every machine which uses a normal log grapple and rotator to pick up wood from the ground should also be able to cut a tree with a saw bar before handling it.

‘We wanted to make this possible without having to make any modifications to the basic crane apparatus, so our solution was the felling grapple GMT035,’ says GMT director Michel Gierkink. ‘This energy wood grapple works without additional hydraulic hoses and without any electrical control system. It can be fitted to any machine which uses a normal grapple.’

Gierkink reveals the major problem with harvesting biomass comes with its value, which is less than paper or pulp wood, and so it becomes essential to harvest it as cheaply as possible.

‘The tradition was to fell trees by hand or, more recently, by purpose-built harvesters before forwarding them to a place where they could be chipped,’ he continues. ‘We considered that challenge and now, by using the GMT035 attachment in place of a standard grapple, the forwarder is able to fell trees and load them faster than compared to if two people with motor saws had already felled the timber.’

As well as saving time and labour costs, Gierkink adds the system can also help save

Bioenergy Insight

money on transportation too: ‘If you compare it with cutting with a harvester and moving the biomass with a forwarder, the total machine costs can be reduced as well as halving the transport costs of bringing the machines to the forest.’

The felling grapple GMT035 uses a saw bar instead of a shearing knife because the grapple weight is 230kg and yet it can cut an oak of 35cm in one single cut. A 750kg attachment would be required to achieve the same result using a tree shear to handle the forces in the chassis.

‘A saw bar adds flexibility too because, if the tree is a little bit thicker than anticipated, an extra cut on the rear side of the tree can be made,’ says Gierkink. ‘The problem of the chain jumping off, especially when dealing with twiggy material, is solved by using a fish-shaped saw bar. As there is no flat side, the chain must get stretched far more to fall off.

Gierkink also claims that, by cutting with a saw bar, it is almost 40% faster than cutting with a tree shear, plus it leaves no cracked or damaged stems behind. So the biggest argument in favour of using a saw instead of a shear is the lower running costs as several tests in Sweden and Germany have shown the fuel consumption when harvesting with a shear is almost double that of a bar.

‘This is because of the weight of the equipment and the higher hydraulic flow and pressure required, plus the simple reason that a knife must always make a complete stroke with maximum pressure of the pump,’ explains Gierkink.

‘So normally cutting a 2” piece of material means you must make the whole cycle, but with a saw bar you only cut the 2” with no need to go to the maximum stroke.’

He believes that factor saves around 6 litres of fuel per hour which covers the cost of replacement saw bar, chains and chain oil.

The GMT035 felling grapple can also be mounted to a long reach truck crane or a telescopic loader so branches can be cut from a tree without using a mobile elevating work platform or tree climbers.

‘The system is used in this way in Finland in a dual role — in summertime it delivers and places construction materials and in winter it can cut and trim big trees close to houses,’ divulges Gierkink. ‘In other parts of the world, especially where there are lots of wood plantations, there is now interest in using this method to cut trees and concentrate them for the skidder. The GMT035 can be utilised on uncomplicated Bell loggers, where it can be utilised without modifications because only low hydraulic capacity is required.’ l

F e l lin g g r a p p l e

Maximum flexibility without modification

Gierkink Machine Techniek www.gierkinkmt.nl Dealer UK: Marshall Agricultural Engineering www.marshalllogging.co.uk Email: allan@marshalllogging.co.uk Telephone: +44 (0) 1892 770788 July/August 2013 • 63

Bioenergy bulk handling The Dan Store Terminal in Latvia handles and stores bulk materials such as wood pellets, feed and grain products. After an expansion, storage capacity today is 90,000 tonnes and it can handle over 1 million tonnes of product

Finding the perfect partner

F

or bulk material terminals with high loading and unloading capacity, high equipment reliability is a critical precondition for efficient handling and high turnover rates.

Multi-purpose terminal Since around 50% of Latvia and vast areas in neighbouring countries and Russia are covered by forests, there is a great potential for increased wood pellet production and thus room for expansion of the bulk handling of wood pellets too.

With this in mind Copenhagen Merchants, majority owner of the Dan Store Terminal, is looking to grow storage and handling capacity there. But many factors need to be taken into consideration when embarking on such a project.

As Simon Rodian Christensen of Copenhagen Merchants explains: ‘We knew from the beginning that we needed a partner, not a supplier.

A partner to us is someone who takes an active part in the design phase and that calls for a certain knowhow in designing bulk handling terminals.’

In addition, Christensen says, a partner must be ‘willing to find solutions when inevitable problems occur’. Lachenmeier Monsun, a designer and manufacturer of bulk handling solutions, met all of Copenhagen Merchants’ requirements by designing the bulk handling terminal, manufacturing the conveying equipment and supervising the installation.

Heavy duty conveyors Michael Isaack-Larsen from Lachenmeier Monsun, who was the responsible project manager for the Dan Store

project, highlights the handling of feed and grains differs to that of wood pellets due to the nature and structure of the two materials. Wood pellets, for example, are a hard material and thus the conveyors installed at the terminal must be designed to endure this.

‘The chain wheel is designed specifically to handle wood pellets and prevent them from getting stuck in the chain, ensuring a safe and efficient operation,’ Isaack-Larsen comments. ‘And since there is high friction created from the pellets, it is critical to avoid this.

The Dan Store Terminal features six storage silos

64 • July/August 2013

Bioenergy Insight

bulk handling Bioenergy Preparing for the future

The double chain system prevents material from getting trapped

‘Dust is also on the agenda and reducing this is always taken into account when designing conveying systems; it is a top priority when it comes to biomass handling,’ he adds.

Set for the future Following the expansion in 2011, Dan Store now has a storage capacity of 90,000 tonnes in bulk flat stores and silos. It also features conveyor belts for the reception and delivery of bulk cargos and a direct railway connection with a handling capacity of over 1 million tonnes a year of product.

There are two railway pits with a total discharge capacity of 10,000 tonnes per day. The combination of flat stores and silos and the direct rail and truck access ensure elevated logistical flexibility for the customers.

The draught alongside the quay is 10.5m and can accommodate Panamax cargo vessels at first loading or second discharge port.

Loading and unloading is carried out directly from terminal to vessel or vice versa, with a daily capacity of up to 24,000 tonnes.

Bioenergy Insight

FACT BOX

Supplies from Lachenmeier Monsun to Dan Store Intake system: • • • •

Ship unloading, 600 tonnes/hr Two railway intakes, 200 and 500 tonnes/hr Two truck intakes, both 500 tonnes/hr Dust aspiration has been established to minimise dust problems when handling the product

Storage system:

• Three flat storages: 2 x 30,000 tonnes and 1 x 6,000 tonnes • Six silos, each 4,000 tonnes • Flat stores with side and centre emptying system

Filling of silos:

• Conveying capacity of 200 tonnes/hr

Discharge of flat stores:

• Conveying capacity of 400 tonnes/hr

Loading:

• Ship loading 1,000 tonnes/hr with hopper scales and belt conveyor gallery • Railway loading 200 tonnes/hr

With biomass fuels from by-products, wood and wood residues continuing to play an increasing role as a source of energy, Christian Ørskov Pedersen, sales director at Lachenmeier Monsun, acknowledges that this is, of course, affecting the industry.

‘As a supplier to the industry we see how power plants are switching from coal-derived energy to wood pellets and waste wood to reduce their CO2 impact.

‘Bulk handling of wood differs from other materials and is not quite as freeflowing as grain, for example.

It is coarser and more uneven,’ he concludes.

‘So we developed a chain conveyor suitable for the horizontal transportation of course pieces of woodchips, cut straw and other complex biomass products to ensure a trouble-free operation.’

This chain conveyor has a double chain system where the link chains are placed in a shielded rail system in the side of the casing. This prevents large, stray pieces of material getting trapped in the chain. Additionally, sharpened sprockets and special ploughs clean the chain in front of the sprocket to secure a smooth handling of the biomass raw material. l

The Dan Store Terminal in Latvia

July/August 2013 • 65

Bioenergy digester design The formation of foam and scum in an anaerobic digester can severely inhibit its biogas yield

Unique pumps maximise AD

A

D operators inevitably want to achieve higher gas yields, reduce foaming and also eliminate the potential for maintenance problems.

Furthermore, in today’s economic climate, it is important for operators to fully maximise the sustainability benefits of their process plant which means each part of the AD process is under even closer scrutiny.

The types of feedstock available to non-municipal AD operators are quite diverse and this calls for a flexible and open approach to equipment selection. With this in mind, equipment suppliers should provide a case-by-case analysis of their customer’s requirements based on specific feedstock characteristics, such as solids content (biological and non-biological), chemical imbalances likely to cause

foaming and the ability to handle both deposition and floating scum simultaneously.

Free from foam The ability to maintain a healthy, high yield digester can be affected by unstable biological issues such as the formation of foam. It is

foaming is likely to be more easily controlled. Similarly, where the feed material varies in its ‘volatility’, steps need to be taken to quickly control the damage foam can cause both to the process and, in some cases, the equipment.

System Mix, in conjunction with P&P Pumps who market the Rotamix System

A healthy, high yield digester can be affected by unstable biological issues such as the formation of foam likely that excess, valuable gas production has to be curtailed when gas creates a foaming situation and this is often attributed to over mixing and often the only way to prevent this is to ‘de-tune ‘ the digester.

In digesters where the feed material is quite benign,

incorporating the Vaughan Chopper Pump, has developed a concept of pumped mixing systems. Its pump and nozzle combinations in different materials and configurations provide AD plant designers solutions to problems associated with other mixing technologies and this approach usually

incorporates the basic Rotamix concept of dual zone mixing.

Additionally, the company now incorporates (as an option) nozzles which act as ‘scum layer breakers’, named Scumbuster, and non-chemical foam suppression called Foambuster. The latter uses the digestate to spray coarse heavy droplets onto the foam, either continuously, or as required, using a dedicated chopper pump and nozzle.

This can also be achieved by designing the system to accommodate the additional flows and pressures required using the existing Rotamix mixing system with the pump operating with a variable speed drive to maintain best efficiency.

This gives AD operators the benefit of being able to apply a virtually universal solution to the problem of how to effectively suppress foam — whatever its cause. l

CASE STUDY: Anglian Water Water company Anglian Water operates five anaerobic digesters at its Great Billing sewage treatment works. The company required a trial system for evaluation on one of the five tanks, which comprised three roof-mounted nozzles. In extreme circumstances during 2012 this digester consumed a 1m3 capacity IBC of de-foamer every

66 • July/August 2013

two to three days.

It was important for this work to be carried out without the need to empty the digester and with minimum impact on Great Billing’s overall sludge handling capacity.

The pilot scheme was carried out by System Mix, which, throughout 2012 and 2013, has completed projects for Veolia, BioGen, Imtech and Shanks

Waste Management.

Firstly, System Mix decided to modify one of three roof-mounted nozzles by reducing its length and adding a plume distributor plate, allowing just over 10% of the recirculation flow to act as the foam buster.

Following the installation of the trial system, Anglian Water has calculated that this new arrangement has resulted in savings of

approximately £20,000 (€23,000). This equates to a ‘payback’ in relation to its investment in the system of less than two months.

With plans to install similar foam suppression nozzles on the other four digesters at Great Billing, it is estimated that under ‘normal operating conditions’, the return on investment will be just six or seven months.

Bioenergy Insight

CHP Bioenergy Read about what Schmack Biogas is calling the ‘first AD plant in the world’ to use waste from hop harvesting for biogas production

Hopping to it

T

he world’s first biogas plant to run primarily on waste from hop growing has come online in the Bavarian village of Oberlauterbach, Germany.

The plant, constructed by Schmack Biogas, generates 11.5MW of biogas power in the form of biomethane which is fed to the gas grid.

Bine choppings from the hop harvest are used as feedstock as, unlike hop cones, they cannot be used in beer brewing, plus a small amount of maize and grass silage is added to that main source.

The Hallertau region is one of the famous hop growing regions in the world. Only the hop umbels can be used in the process of beer brewing so a lot of organic material, like the bines,) is left as residues.

These residues usually are chopped, stored and spread out onto hop fields as a fertilizer and not used as an energy source. This practice has its problems, particularly when it comes to storage the bine choppings — a big challenge for the farmers.

Due to a lack of space, the chopped bines are spread

Hop silage

Maize silage

Hop pretreatment

Recirculate Spikes

Digester

Gas upgrading

Separator Solid digestate Digestate storage

Liquid digestate

Flow chart showing the Hallertau process

The path was clear to use the residues from hop growing in Hallertau for energy during or straight after harvesting on the fields.

During this time period the hop does not need fertiliser so, ecologically, it makes more sense to store the biomass and fertilise the fields in the

next period before planting the hop. Also the silage effluent should not seep into the ground water when the residues are stored.

Furthermore the hop residues contain metal nails, so-called ‘spikes’, which are necessary to mount the hop plants onto racks. Spikes can prove problematic both during transportation, as the streets and fields become polluted with them, and when they are spread as a fertiliser without pretreatment.

Creative idea

Just a glimpse: the Hallertau biomethane plant viewed through some hops

Bioenergy Insight

Gas grid

Biogas

The idea to build a biogas plant began in 2005 when Franz Högl and his sister Rita Högl, operators of compost and recycling services company

Högl Kompost und Recyling, reflected on how to face the aforementioned challenges.

The first step towards solving the problem was the invention of a process to remove all of the spikes from the hop bine. The application of an extrusion process and magnets to remove the metal contaminants made the bine choppings usable for anaerobic digestion as there were now no impurities in the biomass.

The path was clear to use the residues from hop growing in Hallertau for energy.

The best way to use the biomass in this way was in an anaerobic digestion (AD) system which generated energy and brought the digestate back as a fertiliser for the fields, so a natural closed loop ensued.

Plant design Schmack Biogas was chosen to design and build a biogas plant

July/August 2013 • 67

Bioenergy CHP and can be fed into the local gas grid to help with unexpected energy demands.

The biomethane, on average, is used to produce 95 million kW/h annually, corresponding to the electricity consumption of almost 9,000 households and the heating requirements of 2,000 households.

What happens to the digestate?

Inner view: the Euco digester

with applicable technology which could handle material rich in lignocelluloses fibres, like the bine choppings. It designed an AD plant based on a Schmack efficient twostage digester system and a liquid feeding system.

The first digester, branded Euco, is both technically and microbiologically superior to conventional tank digesters.

Its elongated horizontal form was developed to process biomass with high proportions of dry matter. A horizontal paddle agitator mixes solid feedstock with pre-fermented material, driven at both ends by a planetary drive unit. The positioning of the agitator and its individual paddles provide optimum mixing and allows for operation with high volume loads.

The main function of Euco is to liquefy the solid feedstock to provide the second-stage digester, Coccus, with well broken-down material. As a result of this hydrolysis and the homogenisation of the feedstock, less mixing is required during the second stage. However, Euco is not merely a hydrolyzing digester as it also produces approximately 50% of the biogas yield.

Through the combination of the two digesters, maximum gas yields can be achieved.

This plant consists of three Euco horizontal digesters, with a total volume of around 6,000m3, and four round tank digesters with a

68 • July/August 2013

total volume of 16,000m3.

How does it work?

The freshly chopped hop bines, maize, crop silage and grass will be stored in an airtight space after harvesting. With these

The digestate, after being processed in the biogas plant, can be spread out on the fields as a high quality, low odour fertiliser. This gives the whole process more efficiency when compared to the former process of composting or direct spreading after harvest.

The fields can be fertilised with the digestate, which is rich in nitrogen, phosphor

and potash, in spring when the soil needs it most.

Another advantage caused by the anaerobic digestion is the nutrients can be better absorbed by plants. To ensure plants will be getting the right amount of nutrition, the digestate will be lab tested for its content so the farmer knows exactly how much to spread out, offering an exact fertilising scenario.

The success story The feedstock comes via 170 farms in the Hallertau region, which each use the project as another way of generating income, a number which re-affirms its position as the largest hop-growing region in Europe. The whole feedstock requirement of the plant is supplied within the region.

As of early 2014, a third of the bine choppings produced in Hallertau will be used for biogas production. From one hectare of hops it is possible to generate three times more biomethane than biodiesel and, currently, the market town of Wolnzach (where Oberlauterbach is) produces more renewable energy via the biogas plant than its households can consume. l For more information:

This article was written by Gernot Buchta, makerting manager of Schmack Biogas www.schmackbiogas.viessmann.com Hallertau’s process is a ‘natural closed loop’

supplies of biomass, the biogas plant can be fed continuously throughout the whole year after the spikes have been removed from the hop bine choppings.

That metal can be recycled and the maize, grass and whole crop silage does not require pretreatment.

The silage is digested under the exclusion of air to generate biogas. That biogas will be purified and upgraded to biomethane, which will then be compressed. In this form the biomethane has natural gas quality

The facility uses feedstock from 170 nearby farms

Bioenergy Insight

CHP Bioenergy Find out how a farm in Kenya, despite being in a remote area, will become an important provider of local heat and power once a new project takes root

Keen on biogas in Kenya

A

naerobic digestion is the biological process which closely resembles that which occurs during the formation of landfill gas, but the anaerobic microorganisms are harnessed and optimised in an engineered system to maximise gas production.

Much debate is had about which type of anaerobic digester should be applied to a certain waste stream. Pre-sorting, process robustness, ‘dry’ versus ‘wet’ digestion and thermophilic or mesophilic operational temperatures are all important considerations when designing a scheme.

However, the conversion of the biogas to stable electricity supplies and useful heat is all too often a subject that is initially neglected.

Biogas is most frequently converted into energy via a combined heat and power (CHP) reciprocating biogas engine — a large, stationery engine that converts the energy contained within the biogas into electricity and heat. These energy sources can then either be used in the digestion process or exported.

The biogas is burnt in the cylinders of the gas engine, causing the rotation of a crank-shaft and ultimately

Bioenergy Insight

turning an alternator which produces electricity.

Through cogeneration heat can be recovered from various parts of the gas engine providing hot water

plant located at a farm near Lake Naivasha, lying northwest of Nairobi in Kenya.

The area is characterised by being the highest elevation of the Kenyan Rift valley at

A diagram of how the Kenyan project will distribute its produced energy

and/or steam. There is also benefit in hot countries to use any surplus heat to drive an absorption chiller.

Here the gas engine would become a trigeneration facility, supplying cooling to refrigeration systems or air-conditioning.

Tropical project Tropical Power, a developer of biogas and solar plants in Africa, recently signed a deal with Clarke Energy to supply the first containerised biogas engines in sub-Saharan Africa.

The units will be supplied to an agricultural biogas

1,900m above sea level.

The biogas will be fed into two J420 Jenbacher gas engines housed within a CE turnkey solution.

The technology used in the Tropical Power’s biogas plant design is licensed from Germany.

The anaerobic digestion facility will produce biogas originating from the digestion of organic processing wastes coming from the surrounding farms, which has environmental benefits.

If organic waste is deposited in dumps or landfill sites, it breaks down in the absence of oxygen and produces

methane that, if escapes into the atmosphere, is 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Digesting biodegradable waste, then harnessing the gas in a CHP unit, helps to minimise these environmental emissions and produce what is considered to be a renewable source of power.

This is a pioneering development for anaerobic digestion of waste in Kenya as, to date, the utilisation of biogas in Africa has been very modest, almost completely absent in sub-Saharan Africa until recently. But Clarke has also installed a biogas engine at a food waste digestion facility at Sotumag near Tunis in Tunisia, sewage gas engines in Morocco and a landfill gas power plant on the French Island of La Reunion off Madagascar.

Anaerobic digestion is an established technology in Europe and Asia for the treatment of biodegradable wastes and for the production of renewable power, though there are few examples of large commercial anaerobic digestion facilities in Africa. This project will demonstrate the ability of the technology to provide continuous reliable energy.

The Kenyan anaerobic digestion facility will utilise

July/August 2013 • 69

Bioenergy CHP biodegradable wastes from the local area to produce power and a fertiliser that can be returned to land, helping displace energy intensive chemical fertilisers. This has both cost and carbon saving benefits because anaerobic digestate can be used on crops to reduce the amounts of fertiliser required to be purchased by the farm.

The project will generate 2.4MW of renewable electricity in an area of rural Kenya, providing power to the local farm and surrounding areas. This electricity output is enough to power 5-6,000 typical homes. The engines will operate in a CHP configuration increasing the overall plant efficiency, through the recovery of heat which will displace diesel normally used in the heating of greenhouses at the farm.

The driver in Western Europe for the utilisation of biogas is usually the generation of renewable electricity and treatment of biodegradable wastes, helping avoid carbon emissions in landfill sites.

While these things are also important in Africa, another particular problem on the continent is power

failures related to strains on electricity networks.

Many populations in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from massive power supply challenges including a lack of generation capacity and unreliable transmission and distribution lines. In addition, the price of electricity paid by the end customer is frequently less than the cost of generation, leaving many electricity supply companies in a challenging financial position, backed up by government support.

Economic development in Kenya has also resulted in strains on the local power distribution network. Recently power supplies in Kenya have been the source of great focus following a recent nationwide power failure caused by faulty transmission lines1 and the rationing of power caused by reduced water levels at hydroelectric generating plants2.

Creation of biogas using waste materials will deliver a reliable production of fuel.

In turn, using this biogas in the Jenbacher gas engine will facilitate consistent supplies of power to the local area. Surplus power will be supplied to the local

electricity grid, helping to stabilise local electricity supplies. Reliable power helps to ensure consistent business operations and hence is a driver for economic growth and performance.

Service support is also an important consideration in ensuring consistent operation of the electrical generators.

This includes supply of parts and consumables and physical maintenance operations such as changing spark plugs, filters and support with major and minor overhauls.

Clarke will provide support to Tropical Power, training local operators in gas engine operation and maintenance.

The more demanding maintenance procedures will be supported by Clarke’s East African service hub.

The gas engines will be configured for cogeneration, with surplus heat recovered as hot water and used for biogas plant process heating and for heating adjacent greenhouses.

The biogas engines will be supplied as containerised units for operation in hot and tropical countries, with ventilation systems designed to operate in the local prevailing conditions. Containerisation also facilitates the ‘plug-and-

play’ deployment of the units meaning installation of gas engines can be done in as little as two weeks. This contrasts to the longer time requirements that may be required to install a gas engine into a building.

The project is also unusual as the altitude of the facility is particularly high, nearly 2,000m above sea level.

At high altitude the air is thinner and contains less oxygen, which is an important consideration as gas engines need oxygen to complete the combustion process.

This is a particular problem with naturally aspirated gas engines when only fixed volumes of air can be taken in. The Jenbacher units being supplied to Tropical Power are turbocharged and programmed to operate under these conditions in order to maximise the efficiency at altitude.

Mike Nolan, operations director at Tropical Power, has experience of power generation in Africa. He sees great potential for biogas to help power in the African continent — especially when used in combination with solar power, as biogas can be stored for use at night or when it is cloudy.

In summary, this project demonstrates the ability of commercial anaerobic digestion facilities to be used in sub-Saharan Africa under challenging conditions.

Anaerobic digestion can help provide stable supplies of electricity to all in the local area while reducing carbon emissions to give tangible environmental benefits. The biogas engines are scheduled for delivery to Kenya in the last quarter of 2013. l References:

1 http://www.bloomberg.com/ news/2013-05-28/kenya-hitby-nationwide-power-failureelectricity-provider-says.html 2 http://www.trust.org/ item/20130620153135-v2nb5/

For more information: Powering up: the finished facility will provide 2.4MW of electricity

70 • July/August 2013

This article was supplied by Clarke Energy, www.clarke-energy.com

Bioenergy Insight

digester design Bioenergy A biogas plant manufacturer had its work cut out to meet the specific requirements of one customer — a dairy and poultry farmer located in Normandy

Biogas boom in Normandy

T

here is no disputing the French biogas market is in motion.

By passing the action schedule Energie Méthanisation Autonomie Azote (EMAA) the government has set ambitious goals until 2020 to change the biogas sector in a sustainable manner.

With this, the current 250 biogas plants will grow to 1,000 between now and 2020, quadrupling the volume of electricity and heat generated from biogas. This means around 800,000 homes are set to benefit from biogas-generated electrical energy, while 550,000 tonnes of heating oil will be replaced with heat obtained from biogas.

Commercial cooperation One dairy farm located in Croisilles, Normandy is contributing to these figures after it began operating a biogas plant at the site in September 2012. The facility, which took a total six years to complete, generates 250kW of electricity. It was built by German plant manufacturer PlanET Biogastechnik and its French subsidiary Biogaz PlanET France.

The plant also generates 1,672MWh per year of heat provided by a combined heat and power (CHP) plant, which is used in cooperation with project partners to dry several raw materials such as wood, woodchips and hay. One of the project partners, for example, is a regional timber dealer who invested in the drying system

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along with the dairy farm.

These project partners now benefit from the ‘Bestin-Tariff’ assigned by the French government, which is only reserved for those biogas projects able to prove utilisation of the heat.

Double profit

The technological solution for the drying the raw materials includes an additional heat recovery system which allows three or four times faster drying compared to usual drying systems.

This is a double advantage for the operator of the biogas plant; due to the shorter drying time, the most important proteins of the grassland plants survive and the loss of nutrients is minimised. With this, the nutrient quality of the hay has increased, allowing the farmer to feed his 150 dairy cows with less forage

Grand opening and commissioning of the agricultural biogas plant

maize and more hay. This high-quality hay can also be sold to breeders where it is in high demand; its nutrient concentration can yield up to 9,000 litres of milk per year.

And while the farmer previously required approximately 50 hectares of cultivation area for maize for the cows, this has since

Dry feeding system with 38m3 developed for manure and grass

dropped to between 25 and 30 hectares. Currently, the content of dry matter has increased from 50 to 87% within just 60 hours.

Reasonable recycling circuit As a poultry and dairy farm, the client wanted a biogas plant that fitted to its needs.

Earlier considerations to use biogas heat in a greenhouse of 1,000m2 were overruled because this would have meant stepping into foreign markets. Instead it was preferred to digest the quantities of manure and liquid manure and to reuse the biogas heat for the animal feed production later. Also, the integration of local partners was focused to establish a regional recycling circuit.

The production of approximately 1 million Nm3 of biogas each year is now used to supply about 500 households with electricity produced in a regenerative way. l

July/August 2013 • 71

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Don’t miss your chance to feature in the September/October issue of Bioenergy Insight magazine Aviation fuel from biomass

Sustainability

A look at standards and principles ensuring forest sustainability around the world

Developments within the aviation industry that could see commercial flights using biomass-based jet fuel in the near future

BTL / biodiesel production What technologies are accelerating the production of second generation biomassto-liquid fuels

Moisture control

The moisture content of wood pellets is a crucial aspect of the manufacturing process. A look at what technologies help monitor product quality

Biogas purification & quality analysis A review of biogas purification processes

Risk reduction and analysis

Identifying and managing risks facing bioenergy plant operators and the industry as a whole

Regional focus: Canada

Feedstock focus: Landfill gas

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World Bio Markets USA, San Francisco Bioenergy Commodity Trading, Belgium Biomass Power Generation, London Expobioenergia ,Spain Argus Euro Biofuels & Feedstocks Trading, London European bioenergy exhibition & conference (ebec), UK

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Seoul, South Korea

9 - 10 September 2013

The Renewables Event

Birmingham, UK

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Biofuels International Conference 2013

Ramada Plaza, Antwerp, Belgium 11 Sept 2013 - 12 Sept 2013

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London, UK

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23 - 24 September 2013

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SMi’s 6th Annual Conference: Energy from Waste

TBC

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