Bioenergy Insight May/June 2017

MAY/JUNE 2017 Volume 8 • Issue 3

Mind your language The lexicon used around bioenergy is changing

Maize is not to blame!

Farmers defend the use of maize for biogas production

Regional focus: Bioenergy in the UK

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contents Bioenergy

Contents Issue 3 • Volume 8 May/June 2017 Woodcote Media Limited Marshall House 124 Middleton Road, Morden, Surrey SM4 6RW, UK www.bioenergy-news.com MANAGING DIRECTOR Peter Patterson Tel: +44 (0)208 648 7082 peter@woodcotemedia.com EDITOR Liz Gyekye Tel: +44 (0)20 8687 4183 liz@woodcotemedia.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Daryl Worthington Tel: +44 (0)20 8687 4146 daryl@woodcotemedia.com INTERNATIONAL SALES MANAGER George Doyle Tel: +44 (0) 203 551 5752 george@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 £160/$270/€225 for 6 issues per year.

Contact: Lisa Lee Tel: +44 (0)20 8687 4160 Fax: +44 (0)20 8687 4130 marketing@woodcotemedia.com Follow us on Twitter: @BioenergyInfo Join the discussion on the Bioenergy Insight LinkedIn page

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 should verify facts and statements direct with official sources before 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

2 Comment 3 News 22 Plant update 24 Analysis: Mind your language 26 Maize is not to blame 28 Policy objectives 30 Regional focus – UK 32 The next biogas decade 36 Don’t waste the waste 38 Nitrogen and phosphorous recovery 40 Opportunity knocks 43 Biogas monitoring – A joint venture 45 Biogas in the UK – Powering ahead 46 Engine power 48 Food, glorious food 50 Understanding the risks of AD 52 Making the most of your AD investment 54 Green storage 56 Overcoming AD planning barriers 59 Wastewater power 60 AD challenges in Brexit Britain 62 Tank options 64 From project build to asset management 66 Making the right choice 68 Feeling the heat 70 Biomass to power

MAY/JUNE 2017 Volume 8 • Issue 3

72 EUBCE 2017 74 Learning curve 76 Full steam ahead 78 Analysis of Chatham House report 80 Biomass in Belgium

Mind your language The lexicon used around bioenergy is changing

Maize is not to blame!

Farmers defend the use of maize for biogas production

Regional focus: Bioenergy in the UK

Front cover image courtesy of Wolf System Concrete Tanks FC_Bioenergy_May-June_2017.indd 1

28/04/2017 12:40

May/June 2017 • 1

Bioenergy comment

My manifesto

U Liz Gyekye Editor

K Prime Minister Theresa May sensationally announced a general election in April scheduled for 8 June.

Germany also has elections coming up soon. Europe is in election mode. This got me thinking. What would my bioenergy policy be if I were appointed to the position of Environment Minister?

The two elements I would focus on in my bioenergy manifesto would be education and participation. Without the former we will never achieve the cultural change needed to become a nation obsessed with bioenergy, and without the latter we will fail to achieve lasting behavioural change to tackle climate change.

The topic of bioenergy lends itself to a range of subjects on the school curriculum, notably science and geography, but also maths

and design and technology.

The topic of recycling should also get more attention and pupils should be taught about the recycling process. This will ultimately help to increase the food waste-based feedstock needed for the growing anaerobic digestion sector.

I predict that teachers are interested in teaching about recycling because it is a topical issue and children relate to it.

Elsewhere, generally speaking, a lack of leadership at local level and micromanaging by central government has had the joined up effect of making precious little happen in terms of planning. Being able to use the heat generated by local energy-from-waste (EfW) plants, for example, needs long-term strategic decisions to be made at the local level, as does setting aside land for bioenergy-based

plants that create new jobs.

Addressing the democratic deficit by encouraging local people to get more involved in shaping decisions, and supporting local leadership through commencing a national awareness campaign focused on the need for biopower facilities would feature in my first 100 days in office.

The industry does tend to talk to itself. Let’s be real. How important is the environment to the ordinary person after health, education and housing issues get addressed? As an industry let’s try to get it up the list. What do you think? Do you agree?

Please get in touch and let me know. You can e-mail at liz@woodcotemedia.com or tweet at @bioenergyinfo I hope you enjoy this bumper issue.

Best wishes, Liz

Get your weekly fix of bioenergy news every Tuesday and sign up to our newsletter at www.bioenergy-news.com.

Don’t waste the waste!

Evonik knows how to turn organic waste into biofuel simply and efficiently. www.sepuran.com

2 • May/June 2017

Bioenergy Insight

xxxxxx Bioenergy

biomass news Chatham House expert responds to IEA bioenergy report A Chatham House expert has welcomed the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) contribution to the debate on whether using woodbased biomass for energy is speeding up climate warming.

Rob Bailey, research director of the Energy, Environment and Resources Department at Chatham House, told Bioenergy Insight: “It’s good this discussion is being had and, while I disagree with IEA Bioenergy’s conclusions, I welcome its contribution to the debate.

“The study draws on highly robust, up-to-date and peer-reviewed literature and its findings are clear: although some types of biomass can enable emissions reductions in the

short term — others can lead to higher emissions over many decades.

“The challenge for policymakers is to design regulatory frameworks that ensure genuine emissions reductions in the near term, not 100 years in the future.”

The debate was initiated by Chatham House when it published a report in late February entitled ‘Woody biomass for power and heat impacts on the global climate’.

The report concluded that using biomass to generate lowcarbon electricity was a “flawed policy” that is speeding up and not slowing down climate warming.

The study stated that wood is not carbon neutral and emissions from pellets are higher than coal.

Chatham House report author Duncan Brack said subsidies for biomass

should be immediately reviewed.

However, in early March, more than 125 academics joined the IEA in slamming Chatham House’s report on bioenergy, calling it “misleading”.

The group of academics from across the world and the IEA state that the study “does not present an objective overview of the current state of scientific understanding with respect to the climate effects of bioenergy”.

According to the IEA, with the upcoming EU-level discussion on the future of European energy, publications analysing the contribution of bioenergy have proliferated, including the recent Chatham House report.

FutureMetrics president and founder William Strauss has produced an analysis of the Chathan House report, please turn to pages 78-79 to read it. l

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www.williamscrusher.com May/June 2017 • 3

biomass news

Japanese enterprises join forces to develop biomass power projects Mitsubishi’s subsidiary Mitsubishi Power Systems and Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO) have formed a new joint venture to develop and promote biomass power generation in Japan.

The new joint venture will be called Aioi Bioenergy. It is being established with an initial capital of ¥450m (€3.85m), out of which KEPCO will invest 60% of capital and the remaining 40% will be invested by Mitsubishi.

As part of the initiative, KEPCO plans to convert the 375-MW second unit of its Aioi

power station from heavy oil/ crude oil to woody biomass in partnership with Mitsubishi.

The project is also expected to help tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In a statement, Mitsubishi said: “MC (Mitsubishi Corp.) and its subsidiaries intend to continue working with local and international partners to develop power generation projects that use renewable energy, thereby contributing to increased energy self-sufficiency and the growth of new industries in Japan while at the same time helping to combat greenhouse gas emissions.”

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1983. It produces around 375MW and uses natural gas, heavy oil and crude oil as fuels.

Currently, Mitsubishi has an operational renewable energy portfolio of about 73MW from solar-based power. It is also developing and constructing wind and geothermal power generation projects across Japan. l

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biomass news

Environmental campaigners stage protests outside Drax’s AGM in York and London Environmental campaigners staged simultaneous protests outside Drax’s annual general meeting (AGM) in York and London in April.

In a statement, Biofuelswatch said protests were being held because of “Drax’s involvement in dirty energy, its contribution to climate change and deforestation, and its continued reliance on government subsidies”.

It also said campaigners protested at a port in Liverpool where wood pellets arrive from the US which are then transported to Drax’s plant in Selby.

In York, campaigners held a banner protest, leafletting shareholders going into and leaving the AGM. Elsewhere, in London, demonstrators visited Drax’s second largest investor, Schroders, and its largest investor Invesco.

In April, climate change and human rights campaigners protested outside Drax’s two largest investors Schroders and Invesco in London

The demonstrations were being organised by a coalition including Biofuelswatch, Coal Action Network, London Mining Network, Fuel Poverty Action, members of Unite union in York and local residents in Yorkshire and Liverpool.

Commenting on the protests, a Drax spokesperson said: “Half the power station has been upgraded to run on

sustainable biomass in place of coal. We have reduced our coal consumption by 40% since 2010 and 65% of the electricity generated in 2016 was renewable. Drax now produces 16% of the UK’s renewable electricity — enough to power four million households, whilst making carbon savings of more than 80% compared to coal. Both the biomass and coal we use is sourced sustainably and responsibly.” l

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biomass news

Biomass plant plans suspended for six months in Wales

Belgian Langerlo plant files for bankruptcy

Plans to create a new biomass plant in southwest Wales have been put on hold due to uncertainty over the effects the proposed facility could have on the local environment and wildlife, according to the BBC.

Belgian coal-fired power plant Langerlo filed for bankruptcy in late April, after it became clear that it would not be granted the promised €2 billion of subsidies it needed.

If completed, the new biomass plant would create some 560 jobs in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.

Cypriot-owned energy company Egnedol wants to invest £685 million (€690m) in a new renewable energy facility at the former Gulf refinery at Waterston, and the RNAD

Blackbridge site in Milford Haven.

Planning Inspectorate Wales has suspended Egnedol’s application for six months, claiming the company has yet to provide adequate information on the effects the plant might have on several protected species and habitats in the surrounding area.

In a statement, Egendol said: “The Milford Haven project has been carefully designed to ensure that the environmental impact is positive and that the sustainability criteria are exemplary.

“We intend to create a sustainable centre of excellence in Wales where independent business units have a symbiotic relationship with each other which enhances their efficiency.” l

The 556MW power plant, owned by Estonia-based wood pellet maker Graanul Invest, filed the request with the Antwerp commerical court’s Tongeren division.

The decision was made after the Flemish Energy Agency (VEA) refused an application in early April to extend the deadline to convert Langerol to biomass by the summer of 2018.

If the project was not operational by this date it was due to lose its subsidies. However, investors may still rescue the plant in future.

The previous owner of Langerlo, German Pellets, went into liquidation, and in 2016 the plant was taken over by Graanul Invest, which planned to import wood pellets from Estonia. l

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biomass news

US-based researchers develop system for converting waste methane to microbial biomass A new paper by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) describes a process that captures methane from natural gas and biogas and uses photosynthesis to convert it into biomass feedstock.

photosynthetic cyanobacteria and methane-oxidising bacteria. The resulting scheme is more stable and reliable than conventional methods of producing energy-viable biomass

via photosynthesis and methane oxidation alone.

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Presently, these two gases are the largest manmade contributors of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. l

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The new paper is called ‘A flexible microbial coculture platform for simultaneous utilization of methane and carbon dioxide from gas feedstocks’, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory reported.

According to the research, as a result of this new process, energy-rich carbon is not dispersed into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. Instead, it is converted to useful products.

Microbial biomass is a promising intermediate feedstock for synthesising biofuels and bioproducts. It can be processed by using modern thermochemical conversion technologies, including hydrothermal liquefaction and pyrolysis methods that produce biocrudes that are much like petroleum crude oils.

According to the PNNL, the new process is scalable and flexible, and presents a proof-of-concept that obtains “exceptional” biomass productivity compared to future targets for algal biomass production.

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biomass news

Governor of Fukushima inaugurates Asia’s first E3 biomass-based power plant Fukushima’s governor Masao Uchibori has launched a biomassbased power plant, six years after the reactor catastrophe in the Japanese town.

The power plant has been manufactured by UK-based firm Entrade and is located at a small health resort in Nishigo to provide it with electricity and heat.

After the successful start-up of the pilot plant, further E3 power plants will be set up during the rest of the year.

“By using biomass from the region we protect the environment together with Entrade and in addition create jobs,” said Mitsuo

Launch of E3 biomass plant in Nishigo, Japan

Fujita, managing director of the building company Fujita Construction and operator of the hotel and spa resort Abukuma.

He added: “In the future we plan to derive a third of the energy which is required here around the clock from E3 power plants (25

electrical, 55kW thermal).”

“Besides delivering clean energy to large industrial estates in Great Britain, we now demonstrate a further application of our innovative power plants here in Japan in the energy-intensive hotel and tourism industry,” said Julien Uhlig, CEO at Entrade.

He added: “As of today we start to reduce the load on the Japanese power grids together with our partners and still make even more renewable energy available.

Our special thanks go to the governor Masao Uchibori, entrepreneur Mitsuo Fujita but also to the government of North-Rhine Westphalia, which has been cultivating a close cooperation with the Fukushima prefecture.” l

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biomass news

Biomass aids UK to have coal-free day The UK ran coal free for 24 hours on Friday 21 April, 2017, the first time the country had done so on a working day since the Industrial Revolution.

According to the BBC, about 50% of British energy on 21 April came from natural gas and around 25% from nuclear power. The remaining 25% was provided by biomass, wind and imported energy.

Britain has gone a full day without using coal to generate electricity for the first time since the 1880s Coal-free days are likely to become increasingly common in the future, West Burton 1 Power fossil fuel had come in with the UK government Station, which had been 2016, when the UK ran for planning to phase out the the only coal power station 19 hours without coal use. use of the fossil fuel in order in operation, went offline “Coal has been a vital part to meet climate change on Thursday 20 April. Until of the UK over my lifetime, commitments. The country’s Friday’s milestone, the and due recognition to last coal power station will longest coal free period the people who made that AZ_BIOENERGY_INSIGHT_Layout 1since 19.01.17 12:58 Seite 1 be forced to close in 2025. the advent of the happen, but this is an exciting

step in the huge transition the UK is making to an electricity system that’s still affordable and reliable but more sustainable through using gas rather than coal,” said David Elmes, head of Warwick Business School Global Energy Research Network.

“There are still challenges and opportunities ahead.

Using less coal is not just about changing the fuel used in power stations, it’s a shift in the way we generate, store and use energy from big centralised solutions like large power stations and the national network of pylons and cables we use to move electricity around. We already see a move to more local, distributed ways that energy is made and used, in our homes, communities and in industry.” l

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May/June 2017 • 9

biogas news Barrow Green Gas exports green gas to Europe for the ‘first’ time from the UK Europe is receiving biomethane from the UK for the first time, green gas shipper Barrow Green Gas announced.

It is being sent from the UK to Europe via the interconnector pipeline to Essent in the Netherlands.

Essent, the largest energy company in the Netherlands, is importing green gas to meet growing demand in the Netherlands which cannot all be met locally.

Essent manager of developing markets, Tim Wijnen, said: “Simply put, over time there will not be enough raw materials in the Netherlands to produce sufficient green gas from.

“It is anticipated that the number

of green gas production sites will not be in step with the future demand.

As the largest green gas supplier in the Netherlands, we have therefore given thought to how we will be able to continue to supply sufficient green gas in the Netherlands in the future too and that is to import green gas from neighbouring trusted countries.”

The biomethane is produced by joint venture Energen at Poundbury, which was the first commercial plant to inject green gas into the existing UK gas network. Barrow Green Gas delivers the green gas to RWE, Essent’s parent company, for delivery to the Netherlands via a pipeline that connects the UK to continental Europe.

Barrow Green Gas managing director, Tim Davis, said: “We have worked closely

Europe receives biomethane from the UK for the first time

with JV Energen, Essent and RWE to put in place the arrangements which mean that not only Green Gas Certificates but also green gas is being delivered from the UK to the Netherlands. All the parties involved have been ISCC certified to demonstrate compliance with sustainability requirements, another first for the UK biomethane industry.” l

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Bioenergy Insight

biogas news

US naval base gets ‘innovative’ AD system SEaB Energy has won a contract to supply the State of California Energy Commission with Flexibuster, a waste-to-energy system.

The agreement comes as part of a fouryear research programme into sustainable energy generation from food waste.

The project aims to “demonstrate and evaluate environmentally and economically sustainable food waste biomass to electricity systems”.

Flexibuster is UK-based SEaB Energy’s decentralised anaerobic digestion (AD) system. Converting food waste to biogas, AD facilities are generally

SEaB Energy CEO Sandra Sassow

large scale and centralised.

Although they enable energy recovery and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through processing food waste, they require the expensive and carbon emitting transportation of the food waste from its point of origin to the AD facility. Flexibuster, however, is a de-centralised and onsite solution, removing the need for waste transportation, according to SEaB. SEaB Energy will install a large Flexibuster at a US Naval Base in Ventura County in October 2017. It marks the expansion of the company’s US operations to the West Coast, having already gained contracts in the Midwest and East Coast regions.

The new facility will process 2,500kg of mixed food waste every day. Food which is no longer fit for human consumption will be collected from local enterprises within seven miles, and processed to deliver 480MWh/year of renewable electricity for the naval base.

“This is a prestigious win for SEaB Energy and gives us coast-to-coast

Green & Smart Holding records 181% increase in net profit Malaysia-headquarted renewable energy group Green & Smart Holding saw a 181% increase in net profit for the year ended 30 September 2016, helped by the group maintaining and increasing its biogas contracts.

Net profit increased 181% to RM9.9m (€2.08m) last year, compared to RM3.5m the year before.

Revenue increased 260% to RM67.38m, compared to RM18.70m the year before. Gross profit increased 236% to RM17.06m, compared to RM5.07mthe previous year. Operating profit increased

Bioenergy Insight

169% year-on-year to RM10.13m.

The results come as the company announced that it completed its first fully-owned biogas power plant in Kahang. This plant is transmitting power to the national grid and generating revenue.

In its financial statement, Green & Smart Holding also said it had “significantly progressed” with the commissioning of its Malpom biogas project.

Saravanan Rasaratnam, group managing director of Green & Smart, said: “It has been a transformational year, one in which Green & Smart moved from being an EPCC contractor to an independent power producer, producing energy by cleaning up the environmentally-damaging effluent produced by palm oil mills.” l

visibility in the US where we already have a burgeoning pipeline of contracts to fulfil this year. British engineering and manufacturing has an important place in the UK economy and we’re very proud to be creating jobs and exporting worldwide,” said SEaB Energy CEO and co-founder, Sandra Sassow.

“The deal was approved on 24th March and is the latest in a series of export orders for SEaB Energy which has experienced rapid growth since the second half of 2016.” l

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German diesel maker supplies biogas system to UK-based AD firm German large-bore diesel engine and turbomachinery manufacturer MAN Diesel & Turbo has delivered, installed and commissioned a 10.4MW biogas-fuelled genset to Wykes Engineering’s food waste processing plant in Rushden, England.

The company said that the contract was completed in eight months and that the new MAN 20V35/44G genset supplements an existing 7L51/60DF engine that has been running on biogas at the power plant since 2014.

The plant is used to back up the base load supply in the local electricity grid and now has a capacity of around 17MW. In Rushden, Wykes uses anaerobic digestion to process food waste such as meat waste, fruit juice and dairy products which have been deemed not fit for human consumption from a wide range of pre and post-consumer sources across the food industry.

“The energy market in the UK is particularly interesting for us as power supplies and demand are subject to great volatility as a result of the decision to phase out coal, and this is having a direct effect on energy prices,” explained Hajo Hoops, senior sales manager for gas power plants at MAN Diesel & Turbo.

“Furthermore, Brexit will also mean largely autonomous power supplies,” he added. “That will make it extremely exciting for MAN Diesel & Turbo in the years ahead.” l

Pentair delivers biogas upgrading system to paper mill in Norway Major paper producer Norske Skog has selected Pentair Haffman’s biogas upgrading system for its paper mill in Halden, Norway.

The biogas plant is connected to the mill’s existing sewage treatment plant and proceeses sewage sludge from the paper production process.

Pentair Haffman’s multi-stage membrane-based biogas upgrading system has a raw gas capacity of 600Nm3 per hour that is upgraded to approximately 490Nm3 per hour of biomethane.

The biomethane produced will be compressed into compressed natural gas (CNG) and sold to an external gas supplier. The CNG is expected to be used to power a fleet of around 70 buses and trucks in the region.

Norske Skog’s move into biogas production strengthens the mill’s competitiveness by generating additional revenue streams and providing a positive addition to renewable energy usage in the region.

All components of Pentair Haffman’s biogas upgrading system were preassembled on cubic steel skids and converted into a weatherproof building onsite for easy transport and installation.

Pentair has completed more than 40 successful projects since 2010 in countries such as Germany and the Philippines. l

Bioenergy Insight

biogas news

Carrefour opens its first biomethane station Carrefour has taken a big step in its biomethane initiative, opening its first bioNGV service station. The new facility will play a part in allowing the French multinational retailer to expand its fleet of vehicles running on biomethane.

By the end of 2017, Carrefour aims to have nine bioNGV service stations throughout France, enabling 200 lorries to make clean, silent deliveries to 250 urban stores in Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Marseille and the French capital, Paris.

The new Servon station in the Ile-de-France region was completed in collaboration with French natural gas specialists Air Liquide. Carrefour has entered into listing agreements with its other energy partners in order to open the other eight service stations.

Lorries running on biomethane have strong environmental performance, reducing C02 emissions by 75%, noise pollution by 50%, and producing no particle emissions. Carrefour will open up its bioNGV stations to other stakeholders in the transport sector who have vehicles running on biomethane.

Transport using biomethane reduces CO2 emissions by 75% and reduces noise pollution by 50% The biomethane lorries form part of Carrefour’s ambitious transport policy, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for each pallet transported by 30% by 2025. As well as the new biomethane lorries, the company is moving its warehouses closer to its stores, adopting a responsible procurement policy and working closely with its main transport partners in the supply chain in order to reduce emissions. l

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May/June 2017 • 13

wood pellet news

Thunderbolt launches new plant Thunderbolt Biomass, a wood pellet maker, is launching a new plant in South Carolina, US. The company is planning to invest $6 million (€5.5m) in the Allendale County project, creating 35 new jobs, the South Carolina Department of Commerce reported.

At the new facility, Thunderbolt Biomass will produce industrial renewable fuel from biomass sourced from the area adjacent to the plant. Additionally, the plant will produce a variety of raw materials, such as

14 • May/June 2017

sawmill residuals, forestry residuals, thinnings and in-woods chip operations.

The facility will also produce horse and animal beddings, domestic fuel and more.

Located on an eight-acre site at 1624 Bluff Road in Allendale, South Carolina, the company’s Allendale County operations will be housed in a 14,550-squarefoot metal building.

A wood pellet mill, with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes per annum, will also be installed on the site.

Adjacent to the building will be a dryer, storage silos, sieves and hammermills. l

Asia to drive future demand for wood pellets

Asian countries are consuming more wood pellets as they strive to convert their coal plants to biomass ones, according to an industry expert.

Speaking at the Argus Biomass 2017 conference, Rachael Levinson, editor of biomass at Argus, said: “Asia has the potential to overtake Europe in the next few years (as a net importer of wood pellets).”

This fact has led Canadian and US wood pellet producers to show an interest in exporting their wood pellets

to Asian countries like Japan and South Korea. Many are already signing contracts with Japanese buyers.

Currently, the UK is the world’s biggest net importer of wood pellets.

The country used around 7.2 million tonnes last year.

This is mainly driven by Drax’s coal-to-biomass plant conversion in Selby, UK. Japan’s imports are driven by its feed in tariff (FIT) scheme, Levinson maintained. Last year, Japan imported 400,000 tonnes of wood pellets.

The country is also turning to bioenergy as an alternative nuclear power. l

Bioenergy Insight

wood pellet news

Drax wins bid for Louisiana Pellets Wood pellet producer Drax Biomass has acquired Louisiana Pellets for $35.4 million (€32.59m).

The news follows a successful auction bid for the bankrupt Louisiana pellet manufacturer, which was finalised on 30 March, 2017.

Louisiana Pellets had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana in February 2016, and recently idled production. Located in Urania, the Louisiana Pellets’ facility is capable of producing approximately 450,000 tonnes per year.

Drax Biomass said the purchase will support the company’s strategy of more

Drax Biomass CEO Pete Madden than doubling its current production capacity to selfsupply 20-30% of Drax Power Station’s demand, while also competing for supply contracts in new biomass markets. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Drax

Biomass currently operates two pellet manufacturing facilities in Bastrop, Louisiana and Gloster, Mississippi, as well as a port storage and transit facility in Port Allen, Louisiana.

Speaking at the end

of March, Pete Madden, president and CEO of Drax Biomass, said: “Louisiana Pellets sits in the middle of a healthy and vibrant wood basket and is served by modern infrastructure, making it an ideal addition to our asset portfolio. We’re excited by the prospect of joining Urania’s business community, and we look forward to increasing our presence in Louisiana, which has been a key partner in our growth as a business.”

Elsewhere, Drax Group CEO, Dorothy Thompson, said its new buy helped the group’s ability to manufacture high quality wood pellets.

Drax Biomass is a subsidiary of UK-based Drax Group, which operates the largest power station in the UK in Selby, North Yorkshire. l

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May/June 2017 • 15

wood pellet news

ORC system helps Maine firm to produce power from wood pellets Maine Woods Pellet Co. based in Athens, Maine, US, is producing 9MW of power thanks to an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) unit that was installed last October.

Turboden supplied a biomass ORC unit to produce 8MW, but the unit has already outperformed the expected power output, producing 9MW fuelled by wood waste from forestry operations. The electricity generated helps power the pellet plant operations.

Maine Woods Pellet’s facility has a 100,000 tonnes

capacity for both the bulk and bagged fuel markets, which makes it the largest pellet manufacturer in Maine.

According to a news release from Turboden, the cogeneration plant uses a novel combination of both exhaust and condenser heat to pre-dry the feedstock for the existing pellet plant, making it the first biomass project to fully qualify for Massachusetts Standard Class 1 regulations for Renewable Energy Credits (REC’s).

In other news, the Maine Public Utilities released its annual report on state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requirements in March, which indicates that in 2015, the vast

majority of renewable power used to meet the mandate was derived from biomass power facilities.

Renewable energy credits (RECs) from 30 facilities were used by suppliers to comply with the 2015 new renewable resource, or Class 1, requirement. Of them, 20 facilities were biomass, four were hydro,

three were wind and one was landfill gas. Of the 30 facilities, 25 are located in Maine, two in New York, and one in each of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont.

Of the approximately 891,757 RECs purchased to meet the 2015 portfolio requirement, according to the PUC, 99% came from facilities in Maine. l

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Bioenergy Insight

xx Bioenergy

technology news Viridor appoints contractors for Avonmouth ERF Waste and resources firm Viridor has appointed CNIM and Clugston Construction to develop its £252million (€301m) energy recovery facility (ERF) on an industrial site in Avonmouth on the outskirts of Bristol.

The 33MW plant will burn up to 320,000 tonnes of waste per year, and is expected to take up to 35% of its feedstock from councils within the Somerset Waste Partnership. It will also serve as a merchant facility, with the remaining waste likely to be filled by commercial and industrial (C&I) waste demand.

Planning permission for the facility was granted in 2011 and was upheld by the High Court despite a legal challenge from Bristol city council. Plans to further develop the plant had been put

on ice until an announcement that the plant would go ahead last autumn.

The ‘flagship’ plant will be the twelfth energy facility to be delivered by Viridor and is expected to begin operations in 2020.

Technology Industrial engineering contractor CNIM will provide the technology for the facility and Clugston has been appointed as the building and civils contractor. Construction will start this summer, with more than 600 people working on site during peak construction and 45 permanent roles created during operations.

Viridor’s managing director, Phil Piddington, said: “We’re delighted to team up with CNIM and Clugston to progress this flagship facility using proven technology and respected, established partners. The development creates an exciting opportunity to support the South West community and Bristol’s

progress towards creating a low-carbon economy, following the city’s successful year as European Green Capital.”

Nicolas Dmitrieff, CNIM chairman, explained: “Viridor is a market leader in the UK’s energy from waste sector and we’re very happy to be joining forces again on this important project, harnessing innovative technology which has been successfully deployed on many ERF sites across the UK and abroad.”

Steve Radcliffe, managing director of Clugston Construction, added: “Once again we are pleased to be working for Viridor and continuing the long association we have with CNIM on what will be our 11th joint energy recovery scheme. We are developing our mobilisation plans in preparation for commencing site activities later this summer. This will include meeting suppliers and the business community in the region to help us identify and source services locally wherever possible.” l

Japanese farmers turn to biogas technology to help boost profits Some Japanese farmers have begun looking to biogas technology to allow them to turn their properties into power plants, giving them a way to transform animal and other waste into profits, according to the Japan Times.

The push toward bioenergy production has been promoted through the government’s feed-in-tariff, or FIT, system introduced in 2012 to encourage the use of renewables

following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdowns.

Under the system, power companies are obliged to purchase electricity produced from renewable sources at a fixed price for a period of time.

But launching a fermentation-based biogas plant requires a sizable initial financial outlay compared with other types of renewable energy such as solar or wind power.

Yet, hopes for biogas power generation are high in Japan as it aims to divert waste from landfill, turn away from nuclear power and produce green energy . l

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May/June 2017 • 17

technology news

US company inks technology contract with Danish firm to aid landfill gas plant Oregon-based renewable energy engineering and construction specialist ENERGYneering Solutions (ESI) has signed a supply and service contract for Topsoe’s proprietary HiPerFuel landfill gas conditioning solution for its landfill gas power plant in Washington State.

The solution removes siloxanes and sulphur from landfill gas to provide high-purity fuel gas.

“The solution Topsoe is offering is unique to the industry in that it offers high siloxane removal efficiency and long media life comparable with many of the regenerative systems on the market while avoiding the typically high capital and operating costs associated with dehydration

of the gas and thermal oxidation of waste gases,” explained William Song, director of engineering at ESI. The company added that Siloxanes are an inherent problem for more than 500 landfill gas power plants in the US. During combustion they convert into sand-like particles that cause deposits and erosion inside power generating equipment that leads to excessive maintenance costs and down-time.

For those plants that utilise backend treatment to improve engine exhaust emissions, siloxanes can also cause significant damage to emissions control catalysts.

“We are offering proprietary solutions that have been tried and tested in other industries and they will enable the industry to take an important step forward,” commented Kresten Egeblad, business development manager at Topsoe Sustainables. l

Pakistan eyes biomass technology to address energy challenges An event was organised in Pakistan by the Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) and United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to promote the use of biomass technology in the country.

The event was organised in late April, according to news website Dawn.

The finalised policy recommendations will be submitted to the AEDB for making the necessary changes in existing policies, regulations and procedures related to biomass.

The quality standards will be used by the customs department of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to ensure that only gasifiers complying with the stated

standards are imported in the country.

Neil Buhne, a United Nations resident coordinator, said that biomass was a “huge resource” for the country with immense benefits. He linked promoting biomass with the achievement of several sustainable goals and highlighted the importance of biomass as part of the larger bio-economy with economic value totalling €1.86 trillion globally.

AEDB CEO Amjad Ali Awan, who chaired the meeting, highlighted the importance of biomass energy technologies both as a means to address energy challenges in the country and an important opportunity to save fuel and diversify its energy mix to include clean indigenous energy sources. l

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Bioenergy Insight

technology news

Eggersman expands with acquisition of biowaste drying technology firm Convaero Eggersmann Group is expanding its product offering with the acquisition of fellow German firm and biological drying technology specialist, Convaero.

Eggersmann said that Bio-Dry, the biological drying technology of Convaero, is being integrated via an asset deal into its portfolio with immediate effect.

Marienfeld based Eggersmann has been active in the mechanicalbiological waste treatment market for several decades and also owns brands including Kompoferm and Bekon and said that it has developed numerous dry fermentation waste treatment sites.

“The Bio-Dry technology now allows us to enter new markets in countries with limited financial strength but where waste volumes and energy demand are growing substantially.

For such market conditions the BioDry system of Convaero provides the optimal solution, namely the biological drying of municipal solid waste for the production of alternative fuel,” explained Karlgünter Eggersmann, CEO of the Eggersmann Group.

Eggersman added that another key element of acquiring the Convaero technology and brands was the fact that the entire Convaero technology team and its expertise now join the group. l

Gemidan Ecogi wins Danish food waste contract Denmark-based Gemidan Ecogi, which has developed a technology for processing source-separated food wastes, has been awarded a contract following a procurement process by the Danish government to establish a 24,000 tonne per year facility.

As part of this contract, its Ecogi food waste pretreatment technology will be used to process domestic food waste and kerbsidecollected garden waste.

The Ecogi pre-treatment technology has been developed over the last four years based on the experience gained from operating a commercial-scale facility in Holsted, Denmark.

According to Gemidan, the technology has proved to be “very effective” in processing food waste.

The Holsted-based firm said that environmental performance of the new Ecogi facility benefits from an onsite energy-from-waste

Bioenergy Insight

operation and a supply of process water from a nearby water treatment plant.

The high-quality pulp-based substrate produced will be distributed to local anaerobic digestion facilities producing biogas which will be upgraded for injection into the Danish natural gas distribution grid.

The plant will process waste collected from six municipalities in the southern area of Zealand, Denmark. According to Gemidan, the ability to

process mixed food and garden waste will be a key factor in enabling new and existing municipal collection services to be developed in this area of Denmark.

The purity of the substrate that Ecogi produces ensures the nutrient-rich and contaminant-free digestatebased fertiliser can be used on nearby farmland without risk of pollution to complete the recovery cycle — something which has been independently and formally

verified through the EU ETV programme for new and developing environmentalbased technologies.

The company added that delivery of this contract will also require it to go beyond the normal design, supply and installation of the Ecogi technology. In addition, a comprehensive maintenance support service will be provided that guarantees the replacement of all spare parts during the first two years operation of the equipment. l

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May/June 2017 • 19

green page See the squirt

By Ilari Kauppila Who eats their own brain under the sea and helps the biogas industry?

There are plenty of different feedstocks out there already in use for anaerobic digestion (AD), and we’re constantly developing more. The industry uses anything from plant matter to abattoir waste, from industrial by-products to agricultural residues, and even poop. Both the animal and human variety.

But who’s ever heard of sea squirt-based biogas?

The thing everybody is wondering right now is probably what a sea squirt is. For something that most people never encounter or even hear about in their lives, sea squirts — or ascidians — are actually quite fascinating.

Sea squirts are filter-feeding marine invertebrates that begin their life as tadpolelike larvae. The juvenile sea squirt swims around until it finds a suitable surface to attach to. It then promptly secretes an adhesive to permanently fix itself to its new resting place. The little larva begins a metamorphosis that culminates in it digesting and consuming its own brain ganglion and nervous system as it turns into little more than

a tube filtering food from the water flowing through it.

Some varieties of sea squirts are eaten in countries like Japan, Korea, and France, but now Marine Biogas, a Swedish renewable energy company founded in 2009, is developing new avenues for sea squirts. Namely, they are being used as feedstock for biogas production.

Not blue, but acts like it Fredrik Norén, manager of technical and biological development at Marine Biogas, says the project began when a customer operating an AD plant asked him — then working for a marine consultancy — if he could find a new marine feedstock for the AD plant.

“I worked with blue mussels during my PhD studies in marine biology. My supervisor was into using blue mussels as a nutrient remediation method. I got the idea during this time to use a fastergrowing organism without a hard shell,” Norén says.

Marine Biogas’ process concentrates on cultivating and harvesting ascidians.

The company uses a modified blue mussel cultivation method, consisting of long lines suspended in water, which provide the sea squirt larvae a suitable surface to grab onto and start their transformation into brainless blobs. Once a harvest is ready,

Sea squirts are filter-feeding marine invertebrates that begin their life as tadpole-like larvae

20 • May/June 2017

the lines are hauled to the surface, where the squirts are harvested and de-watered.

The dewatering process is what gives them their name — when removed from the water, the squirt often violently expels water from its siphons.

“We then transport them to an AD plant on the Swedish west coast. This plant, Falkenberg Biogas, is owned by E.ON and produces both biogas and organic fertiliser, which is perfect for us,” explains Norén.

The nitrogen neutraliser Not only does cultivating sea squirts provide feedstock for biogas production, it may even be good for the health of the marine environment. Norén explains that the effects of ascidian farming are comparable to blue mussel or any other intensive bivalve culture.

“There are very few negative effects in general, but some damage can be caused to the sea floor if the culture is placed in too shallow water or too weak currents. In our environmental assessments, we have found that if such placement is avoided, there is no negative impact found on the sea floor ecosystem,” he says.

The positive effects are also promising. Visibility in the Nordic waters off Sweden’s coast has decreased since the fifties, says Norén, but cultivating sea squirts can increase this visibility due to them consuming free-floating debris. Not only that, the animals absorb nitrogen and phosphorus from the sea, which is then returned to land, closing the nutrient loop.

Wait, hold on. Animals?

Indeed, despite their mindless existence, sea squirts are animals. So, is it then acceptable to use them for

biogas production? Norén says that there are of course always ethical considerations when working with animals and Marine Biogas takes them seriously. However, once again, the situation is comparable to blue mussel cultivation.

“Ascidians are invertebrates and are not under animal welfare legislation as such,” he explains. “They live for one year in our waters and they reproduce in May before their natural death in June.

We harvest the wild squirts at the end of this period, and so adapt our method to the natural cycle.”

Sea squirts are a proven feedstock and can have a positive impact on the environment in several ways, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions through biogas production and improving the health of seas. Unfortunately, the industry in Sweden is not overtly enthusiastic about them. According to Norén, biogas producers are reluctant to pay for the feedstock, as in Sweden they are paid themselves to take care of municipal and industrial organic waste.

“But if the biogas market changes, we are ready to produce large quantities of biomass,” he says.

Marine Biogas also wants to sell the environmental improvement services that sea squirts provide.

Removing nitrogen from the sea can be expensive, and sea squirts may provide the solution to the problem.

“In Sweden and other regions suffering from eutrophication, there are discussions on whether society needs to pay for such nitrogen removal — and we are ready. Ten Euros per removed kilogram of nitrogen is a cheap price compared to traditional nitrogen removal,” Norén concludes. l

Bioenergy Insight

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

Location

Company

Incident information

12/04/17

Rotherham, UK

Babcock & Wilcox Vølund

UK-based unions GMB and Unite staged protests at the construction site of a new biomass plant in Rotherham, Yorkshire. The unions claim the companies constructing the plant are undercutting and exploiting construction workers. Representatives from the unions handed in a petition to the Danish government calling for an investigation.

11/04/17

Sherborne, UK

N/A

Firefighters were called to a fire involving 30 tonnes of wood pellets. The fire broke out in a single storey building at an industrial unit. The building obtained approximately 60% fire damage.

31/03/17

Maine, USA

Stored Solar

Figures from the Maine Public Utilities Commission show that the Stored Solar Jonesboro biomass plant was essentially idle for the last week of March. The stop in production was the result of loggers cutting deliveries to the plant due to a pay dispute.

11/03/2017

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

N/A

115 people were killed following a landslide at a landfill site in Ethiopia.

The disaster at the 74-acre waste area flattened the homes of families living in the area. Locals blamed the disaster on the construction of a biogas plant at the landfill site.

South West Wood Products (SWWP)

A suspected arson attack took place at SWWP’s facility on Ashcott Road in Meare.

SWWP said 100 tonnes of wood product was destroyed in the blaze, which took five hours for firefighters to bring under control.

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May/June 2017 • 21

Bioenergy plant update

Plant update – United Kingdom BioDynamic UK Location Nottinghamshire, UK Alternative fuel Biogas Capacity 2.5MW Feedstock Food waste Construction/expansion/ BioDynamic UK received funding for acquisition a new anaerobic digestion facility, through P2P investment Completion date Construction of first phase completed April 2017 Investment £1.5 million (€1.8m) Eco Sustainable Solutions Location Dorset, UK Alternative fuel Biogas Feedstock Food waste and organic materials Construction/expansion/ Eco Sustainable Systems completed acquisition work on a new combined heat and power (CHP) plant Completion date April 2017 Investment £8.5 million (€10m) Barrow Green Gas and Energen Location Poundbury, UK Alternative fuel Biomethane Capacity N/A Feedstock Maize, grass, potato and food Construction/expansion/ Barrow Green Gas began to export acquisition biomethane to Europe, claiming it was the first time Europe had received the biofuel from the UK. The gas was produced by the Energen facility in Poundbury National Trust Location Alternative fuel Feedstock Construction/expansion/ acquisition

Completion date

22 • May/June 2017

Devon, UK Renewable electricity Woodchip and pellet Knightshayes Court in Tiverton, Devon is switching to a new, sustainable biomass heating system, aiming to get 50% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. It will save the property about £38,000 (€39,256) a year March 2017

ReFood Location Widnes, UK Alternative fuel Biogas Capacity Processing 160,000 tonnes per year of waste Feedstock Food waste Construction/expansion/ ReFood is expanding its Widnes acquisition biogas facility by 33% by constructing a new anaerobic digestion tank. The expansion will make Widnes one of the largest anaerobic digestion plants in Europe Project start date March 2017 Completion date 22 week duration London Gatwick and DHL Location Alternative fuel Feedstock Construction/expansion/ acquisition

Completion date Investment

London Gatwick Airport Renewable electricity Category 1 waste (food waste and anything mixed with it) London Gatwick became the first airport in the world to turn waste into energy onsite. It forms part of an ambitious strategy to improve the airport’s recycling rate from 49-85% March 2017 £3.8 million (€4.47m)

Veolia Location Gloucestershire, UK Alternative fuel Biogas Capacity 520kWe Feedstock Food waste Construction/expansion/ Rose Hill Recycling awarded a acquisition contract to Veolia to design and manage a 520kWe biogas-fired waste based CHP energy plant in the UK Project start date February 2017 Spencer Group and Lynemouth Power Location Port of Tyne, England Alternative fuel Renewable energy Feedstock Wood pellets Construction/expansion/ UK engineering firm Spencer Group acquisition has announced it has erected three major silos as the centrepiece of a major bioenergy project in the Port of Tyne, in the north of England Designer/builder Spencer Group Completion date 3 February 2017 Emerson and EPH Lynemouth Power Location Port of Tyne, UK Alternative fuel Biogas Capacity 390MW per year Feedstock Wood waste Construction/expansion/ EPH Lynemouth Power has awarded acquisition Emerson a contract to help convert the 44-year-old coal-fired Lynemouth power station to a new biomass-fuelled power plant Designer/builder Emerson Project start date January 2017 *This list is based on information made available to Bioenergy Insight at the time of printing. If you would like to update the list with additional plants for future issues, email liz@woodcotemedia.com

Bioenergy Insight

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May/June 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 23

Bioenergy analysis Changing one’s rhetoric can make a political impact

Mind your language

By Liz Gyekye

A

s Bioenergy Insight went to press, media outlets reported that top aides of President Donald Trump will be meeting to discuss whether or not the US should remain part of the Paris climate agreement.

Officials will be discussing their options, with the goal of providing a recommendation to the president about the path forward, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Independent reported.

The non-binding international agreement was forged in Paris in December 2015 and allowed rich and poor countries to set their own goals to reduce carbon dioxide. It went into effect

last November after it was ratified by countries, including the US and China.

According to the New York Times, during his campaign trail, Trump vowed to “cancel” the climate deal, and his most politically conservative advisers, including Steve Bannon, have pushed him to follow through. However, Bannon’s influence has waned in recent weeks, while authority has risen for Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who advocate staying in the accord.

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has also spoken in favour of “keeping a seat at the table” in the climate pact, and in recent

days, major corporations have stepped forward to embrace that position.

While no decision has been made, experts tracking it say that view is gaining traction, according to media reports.

This point is interesting because it shows the power of words. Words have incredible power. Words create worlds. The words we use define ourselves and the world around us and they shape our reality.

message through to the current administration.

He said: “The lexicon we are using today is different from what we were using in October. We are removing climate change from our vocabulary and using other vocabulary that resonates more with Republican interests like infrastructure, clean air and clean water. This focuses more on the theme of personal health issues than environmental issues.”

Different day, different tune

Post-Brexit

In March, Patrick Serfass, executive director of the American Biogas Council told Bioenergy Insight that his organisation had changed its lexicon in order to get its environmental

It’s not just US green organisations that are juggling with words and vocabulary to suit the changing political climate, UK ones are also experiencing the same issue. The situation follows reports in the UK press that the UK government planned to water down regulations surrounding climate change in an effort to help secure post-Brexit trade, according to civil service documents.

Tim Hitchens, the director general of economic and consular affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), was due to say in a speech scheduled before Bioenergy Insight went to press, that the UK must change its focus to carry out Prime Minister Theresa May’s vision of the country as a “great, global trading nation”.

“You have a crucial role to play in posts in implementing our new approach to prosperity against the huge changes stemming from last year’s Brexit vote,” the notes seen

by The Sunday Times read.

Bioenergy experts have changed their vocabulary on the environment in order to fit in with the changing political stable

24 • May/June 2017

Bioenergy Insight

analysis Bioenergy “Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts — you will all need to prioritise developing capability in this area. Some economic securityrelated work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.”

Language of reducing carbon Speaking to Bioenergy Insight, Max Aitken, director at London-based power plant consultant Estover, says that he agrees with Serfass.

He explains: “In the UK it’s all about industrial strategy, being the government’s priority at the moment. In many ways other than Brexit it’s the only major initiative they have — and an important one. We are positioning our combined heat and power plants as supporting industry, lowering costs. The language of reducing carbon is less

important now. Perhaps this is because some of the carbon reduction targets are being met and because the health of the economy is critically important with Brexit.”

Andy Yuill, senior renewable heat manager at UK-based renewable energy consultancy Natural Power, tells Bioenergy Insight that one of the big

has been variously called the biomass team, bioenergy team and now renewable heat team over the last four years as we started working on biomass combustion, then included biogas AD and then onto heat pumps, EfW and district heating networks.”

Mandy Stoker, director at Shropshire environmental

‘The lexicon we are using today is different from what we were using in October’ Patrick Serfass, executive director at the American Biogas Council

changes in bioenergy language has been the shift in the phrase “carbon neutral” to “low carbon” in recognition of the lifecycle emissions.

Yuill adds: “My own team

consultancy E4 Environment, says: “I would say yes the language used has changed.

I will have to have a think about specific examples but our language tends to change

around ‘policy’ jargon/ wording. For example, when we were introduced to the word ‘sustainability’ back in the 90’s a whole new language came from that. ‘Renewable energy’ is another word to hang new words and phrases on. A more recent one is ‘circular economy’ where we are now considering the lifecycle and impact of pretty much every action and it embraces words like ‘low-carbon economy’ ‘community engagement’ etc. I suppose its aim is to make changes sympathetically using language that appears to be positive to the wider audience.”

All in all, it seems in this quick-paced political scene, one really does have to set out a strategic plan on getting the environmental message across and of course, mind one’s language. l

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May/June 2017 • 25

Bioenergy opinion Farmers respond to George Monbiot’s article on growing maize for biogas production

Maize is not to blame!

I

By Robin Whitlock

n February 2014, just after the serious winter floods that hit the UK in that year and in 2013, Guardian columnist George Monbiot went on the warpath against maize, claiming that the crop is a major cause of soil erosion and runoff.

“184 miles of idiocy, perfectly calibrated to cause disaster”, the piece screamed, amid observations of ploughed fields left bare through the winter, compaction from heavy machinery, bare soil during winter and crop lines running downhill into water courses. Using highly emotive words, such as the biblical term ‘parable’ and references to Mount Ararat, and pointing to the calamitous flooding of the Thames and the Somerset Levels, Monbiot set the scene for the judgement of his readers.

“Worst of all is the shift towards growing maize,” Monbiot said bluntly, firmly linking the crop with all he had supposedly seen, claiming that in maize fields in the south-west the soil structure has broken down, and labelling maize grown for biogas production as a “false solution to climate change” reducing the land’s capacity to hold water.

A second article in March 2014, citing a blog by Miles King, a conservationist who has questioned whether climate change solutions should come before conservation, claimed that maize requires a great deal of fertiliser and pesticide. This comment isn’t referenced, but King does refer to a Defra fertiliser manual mentioning high use of nitrogen and phosphate where

26 • May/June 2017

maize is not grown in rotation.

Monbiot also pointed to a paper published in Wiley’s Soil Use & Management journal. The contents, which are summarised in a separate letter to The Guardian by one of its co-authors, Robert Palmer, mentioned maize fields showing serious structural degradation, including smeared, rutted and severely compacted ground causing surface runoff across fields.

The comment is important in that it suggests a problem with late harvesting in general, not specifically with maize.

Provocation These are all pretty hefty charges. So what to make of them? Monbiot’s article upset a lot of people, and largely because of it, maize and soil erosion are now firmly, and perhaps irrevocably, linked in many people’s minds., But when you actually start talking directly to farmers themselves, a completely different picture emerges.

Monbiot’s assessment leaves a sour taste in the mouths of people like John Morgan of the Maize Growers Association (MGA), a 600-strong nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting education about maize among farmers and spreading awareness of the appropriate, rather than inappropriate, way in which to grow it. The MGA is keen to stress that it isn’t a trade association.

It doesn’t sell or promote maize itself, but merely provides as much information as possible about it.

“Some of those statements are completely wrong,”

Morgan says. He adds: “Others can be applied to any spring crop, while others can be applied to inappropriately grown maize, potato, swede, anything. What he’s chosen to do is pin to maize big statements that could apply to the crop but could apply to other things as well. Maize is a very environmentally-sound crop. It’s one of the most chemically efficient crops at converting sunlight into biomass and there is a very low level of agrochemical use.

There are no foliar diseases to speak of and very little need to apply fungicide. Maize requires significantly lower chemicals than many other crops.”

The claim that maize breaks down soil structure is swiftly dismissed by Morgan as complete and utter rubbish on the basis that it is a deeprooting plant which harvests nutrients from a great depth, improving soil structure. Maize has been grown in fields for over 30 years successfully and there’s no direct link between the two whatsoever.

Maize crops should be drilled parallel to watercourses and on the contour rather than down the slope.

Biogas power The MGA concedes that over the last eight years, the major impetus with regard to interest in growing maize has come from those interested in growing maize for anaerobic digestion and biogas. Most of the new members over the last 2-3 years have come from that direction. Bioenergy occupies an important part of the overall multi-technology renewable energy mix

because of the intermittency of wind and solar. Innovation in solutions such as energy storage, smart energy and demand management will ultimately solve these issues, but in the meantime bioenergy has to fill the gap.

This means that maize provides very valuable business opportunities at a time when farmers are struggling to break even under pressure from low prices. Maize is harvested after most other arable crops in the autumn, which helps to make maximum use of farm machinery and labour and also acts as a very good break crop, enabling farmers to control disease and weeds effectively — by “good old fashioned rotation” as Morgan puts it. This comment by him swiftly counters the circumstances cited in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) manual sourced by Miles King.

Tackling the issue And that, actually, is the point.

John Morgan believes strongly that the problem isn’t to do with maize in isolation, but with inappropriate growing of crops in general, including maize. The MGA is more than happy to acknowledge there can be problems resulting from inappropriate grown maize and have spent the last 15 years out of its 30 year existence actively trying to tackle the issue. It has carried out numerous trials and conducted a lot of work to demonstrate to farmers how to remove and reduce the risks and recommends a four-step approach that, if followed closely, should

Bioenergy Insight

avoid any trouble.

Individual assessment of the field is vital, looking at the site, the soil, the steepness of the field, environmental features around the field and whether or not the field slopes down to a stream, river or other valuable wildlife feature.

The right variety is important as there are different types of maize, some of which require less of a growing season than others.

This is important because the problems seem to be linked to tractors driving around in fields in October and November, but less so in September.

The third step is drilling the maize seed based on the soil temperature and suitable soil conditions. This is often earlier than many farmers believe, so drilling from the middle of April onwards, rather than traditionally the 1st of May onwards, means an earlier harvest.

Finally, the MGA urges cultivation after harvesting to encourage absorption of water and the establishment of a crop immediately postharvest, either a winter cereal or a purpose cover crop.

The soil should not be left bare over winter, it is not a necessity or a requirement.

Thanks to organisations like the MGA, awareness of the issues seems to be high. It works a lot with the Natural England initiative Catchment Senstive Farming over the whole country, providing speakers and running talks on good maize management and also works with water companies, wildlife trusts and agricultural development boards trying to improve awareness. Even so, how successful they are reaching farmers that aren’t members the MGA can’t really tell.

As Ross Cherrington, senior farm adviser with the West Country Rivers Trust, quoted in Farmers Guardian, says, there will always be some farmers who “do not see the impact of their operations outside their farm gate”.

Bioenergy Insight

Nevertheless, with the amount of effort injected into acknowledging and solving the problems by farmers and the MGA in particular, it is no wonder that farmers are more than a bit frustrated that Monbiot has chosen to “tar them all with the same brush”.

The anger is palpable.

Farmers feel they have been “done over”, and this is compounded by the feeling that Monbiot hasn’t bothered to speak to farmers directly.

“There is a lot going on in his attack on maize,” Morgan says. “Some of it is relevant but it’s mostly to do with inappropriately grown crops.

He’s got a platform there at The Guardian, but he’s certainly never made any contact with us to discuss an opinion. George has got a lot to answer for really. He’s chosen to lay into something without doing the research to be perfectly blunt and so you can understand that a lot of people, us included, feel a little bit done over.

We could have pointed out to him that there is a lot that can be done and a lot that is being done, and yet we haven’t had that chance. I would actually be delighted if he got in touch with us, and I could show him round some of the farms and get him to question some of the things he’s said. But I suspect it’s not going to happen.”

Rewilding Could Monbiot’s motivation really be to do with his craze for ‘rewilding’, which Dr Andrew Clark of the National Farmers Union (NFU) cites as a possible motive? Could it be the issue of whether biogas crops are clashing with the need for land for food?

One thing is very clear above all else. These issues will never be solved by alienating farmers.

But they might just be solved by talking to, and working with, them. l

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Bioenergy opinion Highlighting the role of policy in driving demand and market security

Policy objectives

I

was recently at a conference where the speaker, a developer of a biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plant, made the comment that their client is the government, not the lenders, the power purchaser or the heat offtaker, but the government.

His comment rang true, in an industry which relies on the support of subsidies; government policy currently sets the stage, the rules of play and the timing of the games. With this level of responsibility over the success, or otherwise, of bioenergy projects, it is critical that the long-term government vision and policy framework is correct.

With that in mind, how should the government approach policy in this area?

Much is made of the “energy trilemma”, where energy supply should be secure, affordable and sustainable.

However, as we face the potential for dramatic climate change, the focus of policy should be on sustainable, as without sustainable energy to combat climate change, the objectives of secure and affordable energy become much harder to achieve.

To achieve this vision, policy should value three core objectives: • Emissions reduction; the lifecycle emissions associated with the generation of power (electricity and/or heat) should be as low as practically possible.

• Efficiency; the use of a resource should be as efficient as possible, for example biomass used in CHP or heat recovered which would

28 • May/June 2017

otherwise be wasted.

• Energy counterfactuals; the energy used should be lower carbon than the alternative, noting that the alternative may not be to use energy at all.

Winning the race Importantly, this should not be a system where minimum threshold values are set as a means of checking compliance with these policy objectives.

On its own, a threshold level becomes a tick box exercise; policy should encourage and reward developers to go as far as possible in these objectives. A marginal gain is still a gain and as the Sky cycling team demonstrated, cumulative marginal gains can help you win four Tour de France races within five years.

Looking at the three core policy objectives in more detail, there are two key themes which emerge: • At the core of the objectives is one consistent message, it is about emissions reductions above all else.

• Technology should not matter to policy, if emission reductions result from biomass CHP or from carbon capture and storage; it does not matter as it is still a reduction in emissions.

How could policy prioritise emissions reductions? The simple measure of assessing the cost of emissions and passing this cost onto the emitter creates the mechanism required to incentivise emission reductions. The understanding of lifecycle emission calculations is advanced to the point where this can be assessed in a robust and scientific manner.

Andy Yuill, senior renewable heat manager at Natural Power

A lot has been written about the pros and cons of carbon taxing or emissions trading as mechanisms to make the emitter pay for emissions.

At the fundamental level they are sound economic principles, the success or failure of schemes such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme have been largely a result of implementation and not economic theory.

Carbon taxing is simple to implement and understand, emissions cap and trade is economically more efficient, but requires the creation of complex trading market. Both approaches place a value on emissions emitted and can result in all sources of energy production competing on a single level playing field where everyone plays by the same rules with the same common goal.

With this one simple policy lever, government will have the mechanism to bring about significant change to emissions.

The developers of renewable energy projects will be forced to, and will

be able to, compete on the basis of emissions reductions; wind against biomass CHP, solar against biomethane, renewables against fossil fuels. The marginal gains which can be made by developing a project to be as low emission as possible will be explored by developers as every possible emission gain will have a direct value add to the project.

An interesting and important additional benefit of this approach is that the government will no longer be the client of bioenergy projects. Energy consumers will select the lower costs associated with the lower emission sources of energy and the demand from consumers will have a “pull through” effect in support of renewable energy projects.

This creates a more stable market than the current “push through” approach of targeted support for specific technologies, especially when support can be removed as the political landscape changes. We are already seeing the pull through effect happen with universities investing in biomass district heating and telecoms providers entering into power purchases with wind farms.

So, perhaps out of character for a bioenergy publication, the call is for the government to be technology agnostic in policy and for the developers of bioenergy projects to demonstrate best in class emissions reductions.

May the lowest emission source of energy win! l For more information: This article was written by Andy Yuill, senior renewable heat manager at Natural Power. Visit: www.naturalpower.com

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May/June 2017 • 29

Bioenergy regional focus UK

State of play: Fulfilling potential Support certainty needed to sustain UK’s biomethane progress

T

By Colin Ley

he UK biomethane industry grew strongly in 2016 and looks set to make further progress this year.

Even so, questions remain over how the sector is being handled at government level and how investors and developers will react to the continued easing back of publicly funded support, especially as Brexit impacts on the UK economy.

While industry leaders applaud the progress being made, doubts remain over whether or not biomethane output in the UK is still on target to achieve its potential.

Producers would obviously welcome as much support as they can get and are always quick to warn of an impending downturn when they don’t get the backing they crave.

On the other hand, the cutting of publicly funded support for other renewable energy sectors has resulted in a gradual reduction of equipment and build costs, which was the government’s intention in the first place.

The challenge, in all of this, is to get the balance right, a point on which the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA) clearly has some concerns.

“Support from the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) allowed the number of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants in the UK to reach 540 last year,” a spokesman from ADBA tells Bioenergy Insight, adding that the biomethane-to-grid sector has seen the largest growth in the biogas industry over the last three years, with

30 • May/June 2017

almost 90 plants now feeding green gas into the grid.

Despite such progress, however, the association doesn’t think AD in the UK is, as yet, fulfilling its full potential.

“The RHI is currently offering a good, rather than excellent, financial incentive for biomethane-to-grid,” the spokesman says. “In addition, the short-term and uncertain nature of government support means that the growth in AD we’ve seen recently is unlikely to be sustained over the coming years, certainly not without a further boost.”

Germany-based biogas plant manufacturer Weltec Biopower agrees. Speaking from a background of having established more than 300 developments worldwide, plus having a strong subsidiary operation in the UK, a spokesman from the company tells Bioenergy Insight that while recent changes to the RHI were “most welcome”

to support the research and development of new feedstocks, the AD industry could generate around 35TWh by 2020-25 and around 80TWh by 2030-35. That would result in AD, through green gas output, being capable of providing 30% of the UK’s domestic gas requirement within the next 15 years.

Post 2020 While it would be good to avoid the Brexit word at this point, it’s not really possible to do so. The economic and regulatory horizon beyond 2020 remains distinctly clouded and much of that is due to what might or might not happen to the UK’s renewable energy commitment once the country has left the EU. Asked if they thought there were Brexit implications to consider in relation to the future of AD, a Weltec spokesman replied: “Probably.

But as with most industries,

There is a still a lot of untapped interest in on-farm AD more still needs to be done.

“The Sustainability Criteria still needs some work, for example, as in some areas, wastes/residues can be difficult to source and difficult to tie down contractually,” says a Weltec spokesman, adding that such attention is necessary to deliver sufficient certainty to the sector to encourage further investments.

ADBA estimates, in fact, that with the “right policies” in place

we will need to wait and see what happens.”

The company spokesman then touched on the key point, adding: “Uncertainty is never good for investors.”

An ADBA spokesman said much the same, commenting: “We need certainty beyond 2020 to ensure long-term support for biomethane.

“As such, we will be lobbying the government over the coming months and years to

ensure that waste, recycling and climate-change targets aren’t watered down following the UK’s exit from the EU. We are also aware that the state of the economy, which Brexit has made more uncertain, is likely to have a significant impact on the amount of public money available for financial support for biomethane and will affect the ability of investors to invest in new plants.

“We will be working, however, to ensure that the AD industry makes the most of the opportunities provided

by Brexit. The sector, for example, can play a major role in reducing current agricultural payments relating to soil quality, biodiversity and the overall rural economy.

“UK expertise in biogas also offers an excellent export opportunity as the government seeks to strike new trade deals around the world; potentially growing the sector towards an export value of around £5 billion (€5.9bn) a year.”

There is a danger, of course, that while UK political attention is focused on Brexit and the task of getting the right deal out of Brussels, the global industry will simply move on regardless. Even if a positive settlement is negotiated by mid-2019, therefore, two years of ‘treading water’ domestically would have a longer term impact on the UK’s renewable energy development.

Food waste management Industry leaders are alive to such risks, of course, not least in relation to urging

Bioenergy Insight

regional focus UK Bioenergy

the government to get to grips with AD feedstock issues, and to do so here and now, not in late 2019.

“The availability of food waste feedstock is certainly holding the AD industry back,” an ADBA spokesman says. “Of the 4.6 million tonnes of food waste collected each year by local authorities, for example, only 12% is currently recycled.

“Mandatory separate food waste collections are operating in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland but do still not exist in England, where the vast majority of waste is produced.

For several years, we’ve joined a chorus of support in calling for mandatory separate food waste collections in England.

This would help reduce waste in the first place, while also allowing all that cannot be eaten, or redistributed, to be recycled through AD and turned into biomethane and/or other valuable bio-based products.

“Even though the government has tasked the Environment Agency with promoting observance of the waste hierarchy, we should already be enforcing it. Until Westminster gets serious about recycling food waste, in fact, it will fail to practice what it preaches.”

Weltec agrees: “AD potential in the UK is not yet being used completely, especially with there being no compulsory source separation of kitchen wastes. Plenty of food waste is still going to landfill, in fact, and plenty of slurries

Bioenergy Insight

and agricultural wastes, from which valuable energy could be recovered, are not being used.”

While there is clearly considerable scope for improvements to be made within the current AD structures, without the need for a ‘Brexit pause’, the downward pressure on publiclyfunded support continues to encourage producers to upgrade plants, in search of improved efficiency, and for innovators to keep pushing the boundaries of AD into new areas.

“We are increasingly busy buying non-performing competitor plants in Germany, for example, retro-fitting with our own technology, adding our own expertise and making them profitable again,” says a Weltec spokesman. “This is also an arm of our business that we believe is likely to grow in the UK in the coming years.”

says that both equipment and build costs for the new system will be significantly lower than AD producers in the UK have become used to with previous systems.

“While the government has made some useful adjustments to the RHI, the fact that support tariffs are continuing to fall has substantially reduced the number of people applying to build AD in the UK,” he says.

“We believe, however, we can build plants at a much lower cost and with increased efficiency than is currently available to producers.”

Based on a process developed

by Slovenian inventor and microbiologist Goran Dordič, the equipment and systems being applied to the new North Wales unit won’t be made available to other farmers until sufficient data is gathered to prove that the development works under UK conditions.

“The fact that we have used far less concrete during

our construction than would be required for a comparable output site, and that we’re also able to work with much shorter raw material retention times than is currently accepted, gives us a clear build cost benefit,” says Hughes. “Once we’re able to show the effectiveness of the process, on top of the cost factors involved, I’m confident producers will be interested.

“As a farmer myself, and in talking to other farmers, I believe there is still a lot of untapped interest in onfarm AD. It’s not as simple a technology as wind power and solar, of course, so newcomers need to be given confidence before investing.

That relates to confidence both in the technology itself and in the country’s long-term commitment to AD in total.

“If we get those points right then I believe the sector has a big future and a major role to play in helping to meet the UK’s renewable needs.” l

Completely new For those looking for something completely new, however, the first UK build of an innovative AD pilot plant, utilising a biostimulant derived from the seaweed, Ascophyllum nodosum, is about to be completed by North Wales farmer Philip Hughes, who also heads Eokgea UK, based in Denbighshire.

In addition to his displaying his confidence in the 70% methane production qualities of the unit which he’s about to start testing, Hughes

May/June 2017 • 31

Bioenergy legislation What’s in store for the role of biogas in the next ten years?

The next decade: Where we’ve been and where we’re going

T

here are several significant reasons for the EU to put forward ambitious legislation to accelerate the take-off of renewables on the continent beyond 2020. Renewable energy has greatly contributed to the European economy by creating both high and low skilled jobs and boosting the European manufacturing and service sectors.

In 2014, renewables employed a total of 1.1 million people and produced a turnover of €143.6 billion in the EU. The biogas sector accounts for 66,000 jobs in Europe, out of which most are in agricultural areas, generating inclusive growth.

Furthermore, the EU is a key player of the COP21 agreement on climate change.

The provisions that will be set out to promote renewables will be indispensable tools to fulfil its pledges and maintain the global temperature rise below 2˚C. Moreover, in 2014 the EU imported 53.5% of its energy from a handful of countries headed by Russia, where this dependence not only costs hundreds of billions of euros in exports, but also puts the continent’s energy supply under severe risk.

Mirroring these risks, opportunities and commitments, the proposal for a recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) for the 2020-2030 period released by the European Commission endorses the contribution of bioenergy as a strategic source of renewable energy in the EU’s decarbonisation roadmap. However, this

32 • May/June 2017

comprehensive overhaul of the EU’s energy should not be seen as an isolated action, as there are strong links with many other important EU policy priorities, including: the recently published wasteto-energy communication, the ongoing revision of the Waste Framework and the Landfill Directives, and the future revision of the Common Agriculture Policy.

Tackling climate change The ‘Clean Energy’ package brings some more clarity and aims to harmonise the criteria intended to secure the development of sustainable bioenergy, stabilising the legal framework and strengthening investors and plant operators’

proposal from the European Commission was to compare bioenergy sources to fossil fuels that they directly replace. Natural gas was considered in many working documents as the fossil fuel comparator of biomethane and even biogas when used for heating purposes. The European Biogas Association (EBA) strongly resisted this approach that penalised biomethane when compared to other bioenergies with higher emission comparators and which does not correspond to the reality.

This particularly rings true in the transport sector — biomethane in fact replaces a range of different fuels such as oil products. Natural gas, as a low-carbon fossil fuel, is

In the EBA’s vision and forecasts, the EU will produce at least 50 billion m3 biogas and biomethane by 2030 certainty. This aims to build a resilient bioenergy sector that respects the climate and local resources. In recent years, the biogas sector has increasingly made use of agricultural residues, particularly manure, and different biodegradable waste streams instead of mono-digesting energy crops.

In the transport sector, the GHG emission reduction requirement will be increased from 60% to 70% and in heat and power sectors first to 80% in 2021 and then up to 85% in 2025 when compared to fossil fuels.

The idea behind this

already recognised by other legislation as an alternative fuel helping to fight the European oil dependency.

Nevertheless, it will be challenging to reach the high sustainability thresholds, even with the higher comparator figures coming from the European fossil mixes. If the default GHG values and the emissions reduction requirement remain the same as proposed by the European Commission, it is likely that biogas from biowaste digestion will be consumed within the transport sector reaching the 70% reduction.

According to the Commission’s figures, anaerobic digestion of biowaste cannot reach, in all pathways, the emissions reduction of 80-85%. However, the EBA will question the biowaste values. It will also strongly call for socalled digestate credits, i.e. recognition of emissions savings through the use of digestate as an organic fertiliser that replaces mineral fertilisers while contributing to nutrients recycling and therefore the European circular economy. Biogas and biomethane are highly sustainable energy products with a notable further production potential from a variety of feedstocks from waste and residues to cover crops and sequential crops.

Unlocking the potential of biomethane The current proposals bring both opportunities and some potential risks for the anaerobic digestion and gasification sectors. The EBA welcomes a mass-balancing system seeking to cover renewable gases along with Guarantees of Origin (GOs), which should help to establish an EU common market for biomethane, increasing the possibility to trade green gas cross-border and making it available to more consumers.

At the same time, opening up the European market should not harm local producers, nor should it result in a race to the bottom in terms of support for renewables. The combination of a blending target for heating and a blending obligation for transport will greatly contribute towards

Bioenergy Insight

legislation Bioenergy unlocking the potential of biomethane in the existing energy infrastructure.

However, the ambition for transport and the thermal sector should go further. For instance, in the transport sector, instead of purely replacing the first generation biofuels, the EU institutions should focus on replacing oil products.

With the current proposals excluding any sector specific targets, the amount of biofuels consumed in transportation unlikely increases by 2030. The focus has been put on replacing crop-based biofuels that are capped to 7% in 2020, going down to the maximum share of 3.8% in 2030. At the same time, the consumption of advanced biofuels should be increased from 0.5% in 2020 to 3.6% in 2030. So far, the transport sector has not been able to significantly reduce its emissions along other sectors and apart from a few individual Member States, there are no clear European visions on how to tackle the emissions of the sector by 2030.

Long-term roadmaps with binding emissions reduction targets are needed and all alternative fuels should be considered as a part of the solution. In fact, biofuels with mature technologies and existing infrastructures are needed in the short term.

Major change The rules on the electricity sector are also on the verge of a big transformation, with a focus on more fluid markets that reward flexible generation.

This is a unique opportunity for controllable renewables such as biogas plants to take the centre state by strengthening the reliability of the system.

At the same time, electricity operators should give a reasonable level of priority to renewables, to ensure that the green transition does not stall.

A stronger commitment

Bioenergy Insight

It is difficult to foresee what the European energy mix will look like in 2030, the EBA maintains

should be placed on the overall renewables target and the implementation of a planning and reporting system to ensure that Member States comply with the regulations. The EBA strongly advices policymakers not to dismantle the exiting legislative framework for the promotion of renewable energy. An ambitious 2030 renewables target is indispensable, where the proposed 27% by 2030 falls short from the EU international commitments, even well below when compared to the EU’s current 20% target for the 2010-2020 period. For this reason, the EBA supports an EU renewable energy target no lower than 33%.This commitment is well within reach considering the rapid decrease in costs for renewables and could give Europe a much more realistic chance of decarbonising its economy by 2050.

At the same time, the proposed deletion of national binding targets poses an equally serious threat, as some EU Member States may not pursue their fair share in reaching an overall EU target, creating further internal divisions within the single market between

the front runners and those reluctant to invest in renewable energy. Introducing a flexible governance that helps countries to fill gaps in renewable energy generation should not come at the expense of national binding targets for renewable energy.

Therefore, the EBA supports a new governance system as long as this is anchored by national binding targets.

Energy mix It is difficult to foresee what the European energy mix will look like in 2030. Much will depend on the changes made by the co-legislators, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to the proposed Renewable Energy Directive.

In addition to this, other legislative pieces, especially the upcoming State Aid Guidelines on environmental and energy aid prescribing the support schemes of renewable energy, will naturally have a strong impact.

Tailor-made support schemes greening the European gas grid and the transport sector while making the power supply more flexible and sustainable are necessary. Furthermore,

any double supports or competitions between national support schemes must be avoided to facilitate a truly functional, common energy market in the EU. In the EBA’s vision and forecasts, the EU will produce at least 50 billion m3 biogas and biomethane by 2030 (by any technologies: anaerobic digestion, biomass gasification and power-to-gas) which can replace a minimum share of 10% of Europe’s natural gas consumption and around 20% of natural gas used in the transport sector.

The potentials are much higher, particularly if the gasification technology will successfully move from its current pilot/demo phase to commercialisation and if the EU legislation will adequately support these efforts of the promising technology. Gaseous energy as a flexible energy source is needed also in the future and Europe should focus, as the next step on its way to sustainable energy supply, on greening the other grid — the gas grid. l

For more information:

This article was written by Susanna Pflüger, Secretary General at the European Biogas Association (EBA).

Visit: www.european-biogas.eu

May/June 2017 • 33

Bioenergy briquetting Briquetting is not just briquetting

Alternative to pellets

B

iomass is recognised for being an efficient and an environmentallyfriendly alternative to fossil fuels. Densification of biomass is an important element in trading and handling biomass, as densified fuel offers logistical advantages and becomes a commodity ensuring high energy content and homogenous quality.

Within the densification world pellets are well known.

However, briquetting offers many advantages to help use biomass for energy production.

Traditionally, briquetting technology was established for developing countries for producing briquettes of local residues to be used in cooking stoves in households and restaurants. In recent times, as the capacities of the machines increased, briquettes were used in industrial boilers to create heat, steam and power for industry and power plants. During the last 20 years, briquetting has also found its way to households in industrialised countries as consumer logs for woodburning stoves and fireplaces.

In recent years, as the focus on renewable energy has grown, the applications for briquettes have grown concurrently.

In the following we have given information about the different technologies behind briquetting as well as some examples of new applications.

technologies and has the knowhow to guide customers for selection of the best technology for their applications.

Mechanical presses The mechanical briquetting press is built like an eccentric press and has a very simple design. A constantly rotating eccentric connected to a piston presses the raw material through a conical die system, where the briquettes are being formed. Large flywheels secure a very quiet and balanced operation. The press operates with 270 strokes per minute. The briquettes are cooled and hardened in a cooling line, which also serves as transportation of the briquettes. The presses work fully automatic resulting in a smooth operation with very little maintenance and service. The robust design ensures a long lifespan and the presses can operate up to 7-8,000 hours per year.

C.F. Nielsen has more than 70 yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experience with briquetting machines and has over the years constantly developed new equipment and

increased capacities, so that the range is now from 200kg/h up to 5,000kg/h per machine.

The briquettes can be produced in sizes from a diameter of 50mm to 120mm and in square form from 55x55mm to 100x100mm. Other shapes can also be produced.

The main advantages of a mechanical briquetting press are that the press can be used both for consumer logs and industrial briquettes for boilers. Industrial briquettes can either be made as short pucks, at random lengths or cut to a defined length.

Further advantages are high capacity, low production costs, and densities from 0.9-1.2.

Hydraulic presses In a hydraulic press the raw material is pressed into a pre compression chamber by a dosing screw. In the chamber the exact amount of material is pre compressed, where after the main piston transfers the raw material into the die that forms the briquette into the final form and required density.

The compression process of a hydraulic press is relatively

Screw presses

Technologies behind briquetting The briquetting technologies are mechanical briquetting presses, hydraulic briquetting presses and screw presses. The technologies are described below. Today, C.F. Nielsen is the only company that offers all

34 â&#x20AC;˘ May/June 2017

slow. The compression cycle can be between 6 to 25 cycles per minute depending on the amount loaded or the density of the briquettes.

Hydraulic briquetting presses were traditionally small with capacities from 50kg/h up to 200kg/h. Briquettes were round with a diameter 50 mm to 75 mm. However, today hydraulic briquettes can be made in primarily rectangular forms with a capacity up to 1.5 tonnes per hour. The traditional size is 150x60mm, but bigger briquettes can be made.

C.F. Nielsen now offers the new BPH-Quattro briquetting press which is a high-quality hydraulic press with a capacity of up to 600kg/h. The briquetting press is a selfcontained unit, with a small dosing bin, PLC control panel and the briquetting press. The press can produce briquettes with a high density due to a large main motor and cylinder.

The rectangular briquette is a uniform-sized briquette that is easy to store. The briquettes have a lower density slightly below 1.0, which gives a shorter burn. The press can produce good briquettes from mixed materials of larger particles. The press is very compact. The briquettes are typically used as consumer briquettes for fireplaces and wood burning stoves.

Hydraulic briquetting press BPH Quattro

In an extruder briquetting press the raw material is fed into a chamber by a feeding screw. The raw material is compressed by a compression screw into the conical die and extension die. The compression screws are conical in shape. The screw operates with approx. 800 revolutions per minute and during the

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briquetting Bioenergy

German wood processor HIT HolzIndustrie Torgau deploys a line of 12 BP6500 HD briquette presses manufactured by C.F. Nielsen

process high heat — up to 300˚C — is being generated in a combination of friction and heating of the die system.

Many screw presses are small, very inefficient and unreliable, but C.F. Nielsen now offers a BP Shimada Screw Press, which is a highquality press with capacities up to 500kg/h. The press is a self-contained unit with a small bin, PLC control panel, smoke hood and saw.

The screw press is a machine for high-quality briquettes with a very high density.

The machine is a more delicate press requiring very homogenous raw material with very fine particles (2-6mm) and moisture content between 6-8%. If these requirements are met the machine will produce state-of-the-art briquettes that will burn longer than all other alternatives.

The briquettes are typically used as consumer briquettes/ logs for fireplaces and wood burning stoves. The briquettes are normally produced in a size of 55x55mm 65x65mm with a length of 200mm.

Other sizes are optional. The briquettes from this machine can be carbonised and sold as charcoal at a high value.

Recent trends and projects Today, briquetting is obtaining renewed attention and is becoming a real alternative to pellets. A briquetting machine is more simple and easier to operate, which

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opens new possibilities in new markets such as Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Furthermore, briquetting presses can handle a larger range of materials such as waste with higher ash content and special raw materials.

In the following we have given some examples of these applications.

• Worlds’ largest plant for consumer logs — One of the largest producers of pallets wanted to produce more than 100,000 tonnes of briquettes per year with each package weighing 10kg. A line of 12 BP6500 briquetting presses, automatic saws with check weighing systems were delivered.

• Reducing deforestation — In Kenya, 65% of energy comes from wood from forests causing deforestation. At the same time agricultural residues are burned in the field. Waste from pineapple fields are now being briquetted on four BP6510 briquetting presses with a total capacity of 6 tonnes per hour improving sustainability.

• Creating value from waste — In New Zealand, a company was looking to find a solution for the dust byproducts from their medium-density fibreboard (MDF) production.

The dust produced during the manufacturing process needed careful and costly disposal. The

dust was converted to dust and sold to an owner of a greenhouse, who turned the waste into a considerable profit maker.

• Getting the best of demolition wood — A German company had a trucking company collecting different types of waste.

The best raw material including old pallets is now being used for consumer logs. A high quality standard secures a good quality briquettes. The company has three BP65100 briquetting presses with a total capacity of 3.5-4.0 tonnes per hour.

• Low cost for production of torrefied wood — Torrefied wood is a difficult raw material with high friction and very little binding in the raw material. Briquetting has a considerable lower power consumption and a

general lower cost level than pellets. Several presses have been sold for laboratory testing and production lines.

• Increasing gas production in anaerobic digesters — Normally wheat straw cannot be utilised in biogas plants as straw cannot absorb water. When straw is being briquetted the process creates small steam explosions, which together with high heat and mechanical treatment changes the structure of the straw. Adding 10% briquettes to animal slurry can increase biogas production by 150%.

• Turning refuse-derived fuel and solid recovered fuel (RDF and SRF) into a profit maker — In many countries RDF/SRF is a waste that is expensive to dispose of.

When the raw material is converted into briquettes it becomes a fuel that can be sold for energy.

• Briquettes for cooking stoves — In Africa, charcoal is being used for cooking stoves, which causes deforestation.

A “village concept” has been created enabling small villages to convert agricultural waste and other types of waste to small briquettes for cooking. l For more information:

This article was written by Mogens Slot Knudsen, managing director at C.F. Nielsen. Visit: www.cfnielsen.com

Screw briquetting press BP Shimada

May/June 2017 • 35

Bioenergy biogas An in-depth look at the biogas sector

Don’t waste the waste: Efficient biogas upgrading

B

iogas is an ecofriendly energy source that is becoming increasingly important in today’s energy supply. It can be used to generate power or heat or as a fuel. To produce fuel, an upgrading and purification process is required and in the past a stable reliable technology was a challenge.

However, today, innovative, highly selective polymer membranes from Evonik convert raw biogas simply and efficiently into highly pure biomethane conserving valuable resources.

In our modern society, decisions are increasingly being influenced by ecological considerations.

Industry and business are also reacting to the trend toward sustainability and offering more and more “eco” products. And green energy is following the same track. According to the Renewables Global Status Report (GSR) 2016, renewable energies today account for about 19.2% of global energy consumption; by the year 2050, this figure could rise to more than 50%, as predicted in a scenario of the World Climate Council in its Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN).

With the major energy producers focusing mainly on wind, water and sun, biogas as an alternative energy source appears to have been somewhat overshadowed— quite unjustifiably, because it is a highly efficient energy source and an important

36 • May/June 2017

component of decentralised supply structures.

Biogas is produced by fermentation of biomass, an organic substance consisting of plants, liquid manure or effluent sludge.

However, in addition to the methane energy source, raw biogas also contains carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases. Because CO2 is not combustible, it lowers the calorific value of the gas and must therefore be separated out.

‘High-performance polymer’ Evonik Industries has developed a technology for cost-and energy-efficient separation of CO2. What appears at first sight to be a bunch of spaghetti strands or a paint brush is in fact a bundle of highly selective membranes made up of multiple cylindrical polymer hollow fibers. These are used in the new hollow fibre membrane modules of SEPURAN Green.

The membranes are made from an in-house developed, highperformance polymer with very high temperature and pressure resistance. This plastic gives the membrane the property of distinguishing particularly effectively between methane and CO2, allowing the raw gas to be purified to more than 99% methane.

Since the quality of the methane is equal to that of pipeline natural gas, it can be injected into the gas grid for multiple applications.

Primary among these are the generation of heat and use as a raw material in industrial processes. Another application which is unfortunately

underdeveloped so far and not popular in our societies is using the purified methane as a fuel replacement.

Two variants are known — compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquified natural gas (LNG). Either you opt for compression for short-haul distances on the road or you go one step further, to ease storage and transport problems, and liquefy the methane as a solution for long-haul road and water transport. Either way the transport sector could be revolutionised by using biomethane instead of fossil fuels. Besides decarbonising the atmosphere, NOx (nitrogen oxide) pollution from diesel powered vehicles would be avoided which would improve air quality and, as a result, people’s health and well-being.

Carbon-netural source It needs to be understood that biogas is not just anaerobic digestion (AD) of energy crops, and it is also a lot more than just a source of electrical power and heat generation.

Biomethane is the carbonneutral source. It can replace fossil-based fuels, reduce carbon footprints, and it leads the way to decarbonising our society and ultimately will significantly slow down climate change. In additionto this, the purified CO2 is already being used as a secondary product in industrial applications in greenhouses to grow vegetables and plants or as dry ice and even as an additive in food and beverages.

The global potential of biogas and biomethane is immense. There is a huge volume of substrates available around the globe such as agricultural waste originating from dairy or meat production farms; municipal waste - in some countries - still stored in landfill locations, and in more developed countries collected and treated in incineration plants; kitchen waste with leftovers from households and restaurants; wastewater and sewage sludge treated in appropriate plants or more region specific substrates such as palm oil mill effluents (POME) coming from the palm oil industry primarily

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biogas Bioenergy

in Malaysia and Indonesia; and sugarcane vinasse in the sugar and ethanol industry in Brazil. All these substrates can be treated in an AD process and the raw biogas is the result of microbes at work.

Biogas upgrading technology has seen major improvement over the past five years. The technology has become less expensive, the investment is now more affordable and makes a larger number of projects economically feasible. Also, the operational costs have been drastically reduced and the yields have been optimised so that an upgrading plant using SEPURAN Green gas separation membranes can run significantly more efficiently than with other technologies.

Evonik has patented a three-stage membrane process which is exclusively available to a selected group of OEM partners and only those partners may use the design. This set-up and design can achieve high yields of methane production and can comply with strict environmental regulations relating to possible methane slip during production. The plants can run with the highest efficiency in terms of electrical power consumption.

The efficient and affordable upgrading technology can bridge the gap between available substrate and AD and the beneficial product and offtake of biomethane.

What else is needed to establish sustainability and decarbonisation?

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Three things primarily: • Governments and authorities need to provide a framework of standards and rules; • Benefits regarding taxes or other incentives need to be established to emphasise sustainable business development; and • Entrepreneurship and individual motivation of companies and individuals seizing business opportunities, exploring new markets and becoming front runners for decarbonising our civilisation.

A framework of rules and standards is essential for any development. Unfortunately, in many regions of the world, production and offtake questions relating to

reduced competitiveness.

Authorities must acknowledge that industries can be key drivers in changing our ways of doing things. However, unless positive or negative reinforcements are established, not much will happen.

Positive reinforcements such as tax benefits or other incentives can drive a certain amount of development.

Negative reinforcements with costly environmental obligations, for example, will also drive and promote a certain type of behavior.

Even more important is the individual spirit of companies and visionary leaders and, of course, the motivation of each one of us. To be prepared to give up convenience or to take risks with new marketing approaches is the ultimate starting point.

A biomethane-powered vehicle does not yet have the same range as a fossil fuel powered vehicle. Onboard storage solutions have been significantly improved already but frequent refuelling stops are still required.

Also, goods that are produced using biomethane instead of natural gas will have a carbon-neutral

Positive reinforcements such as tax benefits or other incentives can drive a certain amount of development biomethane have not been settled yet. Simple issues like product quality or safety standards must be agreed and harmonised as much as possible to enable multiple projects to start up.

‘Positive reinforcements’ To replace easily accessible and available fossil-based fuels and natural gas means initially increased effort or higher operating costs, lower profit margins and, possibly,

DNA and will reduce the entire carbon value chain.

But ultimately, customers need to be prepared to pay a premium.

Furthermore, biogas upgrading is becoming more and more attractive to governments across the world in order for them to close the gap and realise the climate saving targets established at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015.

However, so far, very few countries have been pioneers

in promoting the production and use of biomethane.

Switzerland, Denmark and the UK provide a supportive business environment. The industry has already undergone and is still in the process of significant development in these countries.

Elsewhere, however, where protection of the environment and sustainability and resource conservation is of lower priority and is less attractive, the development is only in its infancy.

A few lighthouse projects have nevertheless been realised in these countries.

EnviTec Biogas has recently commissioned one of the first and largest biogas upgrading projects using SEPURAN Green membranes. Their integrated turnkey solution branded as EnviThan is now operational in China. In Penglai, in Shandong Province, chicken manure is converted to biogas and ultimately upgraded to 1000Nm³/h biomethane. The biomethane that comes from the upgrading plant at 13.5 bar is then compressed to 200 bar and stored in CNG (compressed natural biogas) trailers. These trailers are regularly transferred to Yantai, a nearby Chinese city on the east coast with nearly seven million inhabitants. The CNG is reloaded at local filling stations to provide fuel for gas-powered vehicles. The most common gas powered cars in China are taxis, but some private cars also run on gas instead of petrol or diesel.

The potential for similar projects is undisputed. With the increasing demand for mobility in a fast-developing Chinese society, the upgrade of biogas from agricultural waste to biomethane and its use as vehicle fuel holds potential for vast GHG savings and business opportunities. l

For more information:

This article was written by Volker Wehber, director at SEPURAN Green at Evonik Resource Efficiency. Visit: www.evonik.de

May/June 2017 • 37

Bioenergy biogas technology An energy technology company has unveiled its innovation in Tuorla, Finland

Nitrogen and phosphorous recovery

T

he first biogas plant equipped with Ductor’s nitrogen and phosphorus recovery technology was put into use in Tuorla, Finland, late November 2016. The size of the Ductor fermenter at the demonstration plant is capable of treating 600 tonnes of poultry manure each year. Additionally, anaerobic digester treats 600 tonnes of slurry a year. The whole plant produces 266,000m3 of biogas, 100 tonnes of liquid nitrogen fertiliser and 380 tonnes of solid fertiliser a year. Ductor’s proprietary nitrogen-control technology harnesses the power of underutilised bio-waste such as poultry manure into clean and renewable energy as well as organic fertilisers.

Preventing ammonia inhibition in biogas production The biological method developed and patented

by Ductor eliminates the nitrogen dilemma by turning problem waste into profitable recyclable goods. Fraunhofer UMSICHT has been supporting the development of Ductor technology for removing ammonia since 2013. “Here, the process principle and the results of the pilot plant in Helsinki were evaluated. From

the results so far, it can be concluded that the technology will work,” says Joachim Krassowski, group manager of Energy Supply Systems at Fraunhofer UMSICHT. “The process development of Ductor, in my opinion, is very professional and has covered all the necessary steps, from laboratory tests to the development of a semi-industrial test facility, up to the first plant on an industrial scale which was erected in Tuorla.

Taking the stage The first commercial Ductor Add-On plant technology in Germany is currently under development. The Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT will carry out precise evaluations of the performance and the gas yield of the treated substrates after commissioning the plant.

“However, taking into account the biological processes and the methods used, I expect the gas yield of the treated substrate to be only slightly below that of the untreated substrate,” says Krassowski.

He adds: “The removal of nitrogen from very nitrogen-rich substrates, such as poultry manure and slaughterhouse waste, is

The whole plant produces 266,000 m3 of biogas 38 • May/June 2017

Ductor fermentation technology in operation

an important step because through this, sensible use of these organic residues in biogas plants as energy can be made possible, if required, even as monosubstrate residues.”

Global market Removing 60% of nitrogen — before biogas fermentation — is a ground-breaking innovation for the biogas industry. This is done by adding one fermentation step, prior to biogas fermentation,

and a nitrogen stripping unit. This solution opens up a variety of new possibilities for improving the biogas economy and nutrient recycling. Ductor’s technology has a global market, since the demand for solutions to improve the profitability of biogas production is tremendous everywhere. l

For more information:

This article was written by Minna Leppikorpi, director of marketing and business development at Ductor Corp. Visit: www.ductor.com

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May/June 2017 • 39

Bioenergy biogas upgrading Operators of biogas plants require complementary approaches for sustainable plant operations

Opportunity knocks

R

educing fossil fuel usage helps protect the limited supply of fossil fuels in the world while decreasing the pollution produced. Alternative energy reduces the reliance on limited fossil fuels. There are good reasons why thousands of biogas plants have been built over the past few years, particularly in Europe. Meanwhile, many biogas plant operators think about optimising their plant operations and also about sustainable concepts for the expansion or replacement of the current biogas utilisation.

Both the expansion of plants with new technologies and the optimisation of existing plants provide interesting prospects.

Versatile potential uses Typically, the biogas produced is used in combined heat and power (CHP) plants for the generation of electricity and heat. However, there is often a lack of sensible heating concepts. Furthermore, feed-in tariffs for biogas electricity are finite and the generation costs cannot permanently compete with low wind and solar-based electricity prices. As a result, operators are increasingly opting for the upgrading of biogas. This biomethane can be fed into the existing natural gas infrastructure or it can also be used directly. For example, for the production of fuels for the transport sector in the form of compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Ideally, communal organic waste streams such as green waste, catering waste or commingled waste are also an option. CNG can be made available for communal

40 • May/June 2017

vehicles in waste disposal, in bus transportation or for service use as a result. The concept impresses in practice, for example at the HZI project in Winterthur, a city in northern Switzerland. The biogas plant processes around 23,000 tonnes of kitchen and green waste every year from more than 78,000 households, from municipalities and garden markets.

Around 1,050,000Nm³ of biomethane are produced per year. In addition to various gas products consumed by private households and large customers, it is made available via three local natural gas fuelling stations selling a mix containing biogas.

An additional order was received recently from Sweden. The plant is designed to produce biogas that will be upgraded to 6,800,000m3 of biomethane and fed into the gas grid — the equivalent of around 7 million litres of fossil fuels.

Projects such as these make it clear ­­— biomethane is a

promising alternative to fossil fuels and is showing a strong upward trend, in particular as a vehicle fuel. In the mobility sector as well, the proportion of renewable energy for long-term supply security and climate protection should be increased significantly.

A world without subsidies For operators of existing smaller biogas plants, this trend also can bring opportunities.

In Germany, for example, numerous plants have already been in operation for ten years or more. Expensive investments are required for the renovation of CHP plants, often at a time of the discontinuation of feed-in tariffs from the German Renewable Energy Act (EEG). Against this background, the conversion from electricity generation to the production of biomethane via the treatment of biogas represents a sustainable economic concept that is increasingly being implemented by operators themselves or in cooperation with investors

or project developers. The reason for this is that with the profits from the sale of biomethane, the investments in the gas upgrading technology achieve good profitability — independent of the limited government subsidies.

As a manufacturer of gas upgrading technology with a number of different procedures, HZI BioMethan is currently implementing several projects of this type and supports the plant operators if required in the search for suitable partners for the sales of biomethane.

Recycling ‘waste’ Alongside the generation of biomethane, the use of the carbon dioxide (CO2) by-product arising during the treatment also offers interesting opportunities.

Depending on the upgrading procedure and the quality of the biogas, the CO2 product gas obtained during the process can be used in a range of industrial applications. For example, the sale of CO2 in the value added

Either with electricity generation or as an alternative – biomethane production is a major trend and offers opportunities for the future

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biogas upgrading Bioenergy interconnection and the best possible use of the individual processes. During the treatment of raw biogas to make biomethane using pressureless amine scrubbing, relevant synergy effects with regard to heat and carbon dioxide can be used.

Audi e-gas plant

The gas treatment plants with membrane technology and amine scrubbing plants are manufactured in the production facilities at the head offices in Zeven

chain of biogas production also allows the creation of an additional economic factor.

In practice, for example, cooperation with greenhouses near to the plant location or alternatively the liquefaction of the product gas for further use in different branches of industry have proven to be successful. Depending on the purity level of the liquefied CO2, it can be used in the food and beverage industry among others, or as a basic product for additional processes such as the production of dry ice. It should be considered here that the regional sales of a liquefied final product in direct marketing or in existing sales structures requires corresponding quality certification, including the appropriate measurement technology, for example EIGA/ ISBT in the food industry sector.

of tension of the existing electricity grid infrastructure with limited feed-in and transportation capacities, power-to-gas is considered to be a highly promising future technology to make it possible to store overcapacities of electricity similar to the principle of a pumped-storage power plant in the form of SNG. After being fed into the gas network, the SNG can be used at a later point in time at another location for the generation of electricity

or heat, or can be used as a vehicle fuel. In this way, it is possible to separate the generation and use from each other in terms of time.

The existing gas network infrastructure serves in this concept as an intermediate storage and can contribute towards easing the burden on the electricity grid.

Particularly in combination with biogas technology, this procedure offers a considerable energy efficiency potential due to intelligent

A reference project that is highly regarded across Europe for PtG with biogas technology is the Audi e-gas-plant in the town of Werlte in Lower Saxony, Germany. Here, the car manufacturer produced SNG to supply around 1,500 Audi e-Tron models with a certain annual amount of fuel, and hence enabled the climateneutral mobility of its vehicles.

The plant was created on the site of a biogas plant with biomethane production.

The existing technology was replaced by a HZI system with pressureless amine scrubbing which was integrated into the Audi concept. This is because it provides the highpurity carbon dioxide that is required for the methanation.

Furthermore, the gas upgrading process provides a relevant energetic advantage when in combination with the methanation process. The

Efficiency at its best An additional area of application for CO2 is power-togas plants (PtG). In this case, surplus green electricity from fluctuating generating plants is transformed via electrolysis and methanation using carbon dioxide into synthetic natural gas (SNG). In the area

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Under the leadership of Audi, a power-to-gas project that has received attention throughout Europe was created (Copyright: AUDI AG)

May/June 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 41

Bioenergy biogas upgrading gas treatment plant. With the additional in-house technology from HZI Etogas, the group can provide PtG projects from one source today.

New products and services

Gas treatment using pressureless amine scrubbing is a significant part of the PtG concept in Werlte (Copyright: AUDI AG)

greatest technical challenge is the constant and uniform heat dissipation, as the process operates exothermally. The waste heat arising during the methanation can be supplied to the regeneration of the gas upgrading to heat the amine scrubbing solution.

In this way, the thermal energy demand for the gas

upgrading is provided via a “waste product”, just as is the case with the requirement for carbon dioxide of the methanation unit, which supports the overall costeffectiveness and energy efficiency of a system of this type. HZI BioMethan also developed this intelligent process coupling alongside the

But even without a conceptual expansion, there are multiple areas of action for the operators of existing plants to optimise their plant operation. The general conditions have changed and the state of technology has been further developed.

Hence, there are new products and services that enable optimised plant operation.

As well as developing new construction projects, HZI BioMethan is also implementing fermentation lines with Kompogas dry fermentation, maintenance and repair work and retrofitting for gas upgrading plants. Whether it is service

on demand or full service with a needs-oriented package offer — the global company structure, the reservation of important spare parts and well organised logistics ensure quick reaction times in all cases, not only emergencies. In addition to this, digital service products ensure safe and documented plant operation and a service hotline provides required support for the plant operator. Collaborating with a competent partner provides the operator with freedom for their core competencies.

All in all, if expedient decisions and the right steps are made from the start operators are bound to obtain profitable plant operations in the future. l For more information:

This article was written by Jan Ludeloff, international sales manager at Hitachi Zosen Inova BioMethan.

Visit: www.hz-inova.com.

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biogas monitoring Bioenergy Working together to maximise biogas quality control

A joint venture

T

wo solution focused industry leaders have formed a coalition to maximise anaerobic digestion (AD) plant efficiency through enhanced biogas quality analysis and control.

As a well-known gas analyser manufacturer, Geotech is constantly expanding its series of fixed and portable units. Last year, Geotech and Marches Biogas came together to undertake a joint trial.

Marches Biogas is a wellknown UK-based provider of AD technology with more than 25 years’ experience, specialising in the design and build of industrial and on-farm AD plants as well as providing mechanical and biological support. In recent years the company has developed more than 30 AD plants across the British Isles as well as supporting a number of local water authorities.

The brief In 2014, Marches Biogas was commissioned to build a 500kWe AD plant near Ludlow, Shropshire, using its unique semi plug flow digester design. Alongside this modern digester Marches Biogas began the process of developing an innovative system to convert the hydrogen sulphide in biogas into elemental sulphur via chemical scrubbing, ensuring only the cleanest biogas makes it into the combined heat and power (CHP) unit.

This complex method requires continuous gas monitoring and sampling before and after the biogas scrubbing procedure.

As such, Marches Biogas needed a high quality gas

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Managing director of Geotech, Dean Kavanagh

analyser that would monitor this progressive process.

Consequently, a joint venture was proposed with Geotech, which was also in the process of developing a series of new fixed analysers.

process cemented the relationship between Marches Biogas and Geotech. Pavel Psenicka, process engineer at Marches Biogas, said: “There are alternative gas analysers on the market

In 2014, Marches Biogas was commissioned to build a 500kWe AD plant near Ludlow, Shropshire Marches Biogas already use Geotech’s GA3000 PLUS fixed unit as a standard on every new AD plant and the portable BIOGAS 5000 during plant commissioning and scheduled checks. Having been impressed with the capabilities of both products, Marches Biogas was very keen to test the new BIOGAS 3000 fixed analyser.

As a joint venture, this

that would have been suitable for this trial, but Geotech was able to offer a state-of-the-art analyser with two different H2S detection cells for multiple measuring ranges, providing even higher accuracy.”

The solution Following the installation of the ground-breaking chemical

scrubber in June 2016, Geotech was commissioned to install the new BIOGAS 3000* to monitor the gas quality of CH4, CO2, O2 and tworange H2S before and after the scrubber and provide the results to the plant operator and Marches Biogas R&D team. The device was installed by a Marches Biogas engineer and commissioned by Geotech product development engineers, who ensured it was correctly configured enabling immediate monitoring capabilities.

The BIOGAS 3000 provided Marches Biogas with detailed gas composition results, allowing them to control the H2S levels in the biogas and to calculate the conversion rate of H2S into elemental sulphur.

By using the valuable data supplied by the Geotech BIOGAS 3000 analyser during the initial trial, the biogas scrubber has undergone a series of further

May/June 2017 • 43

Bioenergy biogas monitoring

Biogas 3000 with technician

developments. It is now in its closing stage of evolution before its release to the AD

industry. After the successful trial, Marches Biogas intends to use the BIOGAS 3000 as

part of the product package.

Alongside the Marches Biogas trial, Geotech was able to test the BIOGAS 3000 in real time circumstances, assessing the upgraded monitoring software and improved outputs.

The trial process enabled both companies to develop and modernise their products in a safe and controlled environment. The valuable data accrued has furthered the development and upgrades of the Geotech gas analyser software ensuring their continued status as the market leading brand.

Graham Sanders, major account manager at Geotech, said: “The continued development of our products is key to Geotech’s position within the anaerobic digestion industry. With the help of the Marches Biogas team we have successfully tested and

launched the BIOGAS 3000 and will continue to work closely with them in the future.”

Future plans Marches Biogas has exciting plans for expansion this coming year.

Psenicka said: “We have a number of new AD plants in development for 2017 and the BIOGAS 3000 will be a standard component of each plant. Our future plan is to launch the H2S scrubber to develop a similar technology to recover ammonia from the biogas, which would operate on a similar basis to the current system. This new process will also require gas monitoring for which we will look to Geotech.” l *superseded the GA3000 PLUS

For more information:

This article was written by Dean Kavanagh, managing director at Geotech. Visit:www.geotechuk.com

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anaerobic digestion Bioenergy Biogas in the UK: Staying strong in the face of uncertainty

Powering ahead

T

he past decade has, on the whole, been kind to the AD industry, allowing it to blossom from a niche nice-to-have into an established no-brainer technology that can help the UK to achieve a range of policy objectives, from reducing imports of natural gas and artificial fertiliser to providing renewable energy, supporting farmers, and helping to restore our degraded soils. But biogas is not yet at the stage where it can continue to develop without government support, as the analysis in the Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association’s (ADBA) latest policy report demonstrates.

What does the market look like today?

With data still being finalised, it is looking like the UK AD market continued to grow strongly in 2016, with at least 15% more capacity than in 2015. 2016 was a particularly strong year for biomethane, with capacity for green gas growing by at least 45% to nearly 60,000m3/hr.

Growth in biogas over the past six years has been driven

by the agricultural sector. The number of agricultural plants rose from 30 in 2011 to more than 260 in 2016, while only six new sewage plants were built between 2011 and 2015 (and none at all in 2016). We expect between 43 and 81 new plants in total to have been commissioned last year.

Today, there are 548 operational AD plants in the UK, generating from a capacity of 713MW electricalequivalent (e-e). 2017, however, is likely to be the most challenging year for the biogas industry in four years. Our current best indicator of confidence in the industry is the number of planning applications being made, and our data shows that the number submitted per month fell in 2016 and, at six per month, is now running at half its 2014 rate.

Policy uncertainty In the short term, the snap general election announced late April has put policy developments on hold and caused further uncertainty in the market. The publication of BEIS’s Clean Growth Plan and Defra’s 25-year Plan For Nature is now likely to be delayed until after general election, and with a two-month Parliamentary recess due to take place in the summer we may well not see these documents until the autumn.

Barring a complete change of government as a result of the general election, the outcome of the Brexit

Looking back at the last four years, 2017 is likely to be the most challenging year for the biogas industry There are more than 400 plants currently in the planning process, with a potential aggregate capacity

In the short term, the snap general election announced late April has put policy developments on hold and caused further uncertainty in the market

Bioenergy Insight

of almost 500MWe-e, though how many of these end up being built will largely depend on the level of support offered by the UK government.

negotiations remains the main cause for policy uncertainty. AD policy postBrexit could look very similar or very different to what we have now, but either way continued support for the industry is critical to allow biogas to deliver its full range of benefits.

On a positive note, the government is continuing to commit to meeting its climatechange targets. However, in order to meet the 80% emissions-reduction target by 2050 (on 1990 levels), electricity, heat, waste, and manure management will need to be almost completely decarbonised within the next

30 years. The Committee on Climate Change has made it clear that there is currently a significant gap between these decarbonisation targets and the policies in place to deliver them, meaning that actions are needed as much as words.

Making the most of opportunities The result of this long-termpolicy vacuum is that the AD industry is growing more slowly than in previous years, and that AD’s ability to reduce emissions is also slowing. While this is of course frustrating, it means that it’s more important than ever that we grasp opportunities with both hands when they come our way.

ADBA is engaging closely with ministers, MPs, and civil servants, in particular through our response to BEIS’s consultation on the industrial strategy. The AD industry has a great case to make here: including AD in sector deals on agri-tech and the bioeconomy would cut UK emissions by 4%, reduce natural-gas imports by £2bn (€2.39bn), and create 60,000 jobs, as well as providing a great export opportunity for the UK economy, particularly as the government seeks to strike new trade deals across the globe in the wake of Brexit.

These are exactly the kind of things the AD industry can and should shout about — and with the right level of support in exchange, biogas will be able to sustain its momentum and deliver its full potential, to the benefit of the whole of the UK. ADBA members can download the latest policy report at adbioresources.org l For more information:

This article was written by ADBA’s head of policy Ollie More. Visit: www.adbioresources.org

May/June 2017 • 45

Bioenergy combined heat and power CooperOstlund has helped a UK-based farm to install and commission a CHP engine within the space of six weeks

Engine power

I

n 2015, Robert Greenow — who runs his own anaerobic digestion (AD) technical and biological support business, BioGUK — applied for planning permission to install an AD facility on a farm in Staffordshire. As well as providing a reliable source of power, making the farm completely self-sufficient in terms of energy use, the site would also supply heat to dry grain, a way to minimise crop waste and a source of nutrient-rich fertiliser.

Aware of the lengthy development process, Greenow applied for planning permission through the Permitted Development Planning Act, arguing that the facility was essential to the farming activities.

Despite successfully gaining permission to build the facility, Greenow faced many delays in getting the site live. This included the need to overcome hurdles to lay cables across the property. These delays meant that Greenow was running out of time to get the site live before the pre-accreditation period expired for the Feedin Tariff (FiTs) subsidy rates.

Needing to move quickly, Greenow turned to engine installation and maintenance expert, CooperOstlund.

Johan Ostlund, director at CooperOstlund, came to the site himself and advised Greenow on which engine to install in order to meet the site’s needs. Once specified, the engine was sourced and installed within six weeks.

CooperOstlund then undertook full commissioning, meaning that the engine was upand-running ahead of the pre-accreditation deadline.

46 • May/June 2017

As a result, the project was able to receive maximum FiTs rates, avoiding losing tens of thousands of pounds per month in revenue.

Return on investment With considerable experience installing and maintaining combined heat and power (CHP) engines for some of the UK’s leading AD facilities, CooperOstlund was able to work in partnership with Greenow and advise the most effective engine solution. The team’s expertise ensured that the site was up and running at optimum efficiency from the day that it went live.

This means that the farm is now able to yield maximum power from the AD facility and ensure a strong return on investment for the future.

The facility now contributes almost two million kW to the National Grid every year — enough energy to power 500 homes. To make sure this

Engineer inspects CHP part

rate of power is sustained, CooperOstlund is working in close collaboration with Greenow to provide ongoing engine maintenance, including a remote monitoring package.

Pleased with the results from the initial investment, Greenow has invested in two new engines for himself and another two on behalf of a client. He says: “Throughout the project, the CooperOstlund team has been terrific, quickly

BioG-UK AD plant

specifying and installing equipment and making sure that the engine performs at optimum efficiency. The cost would be substantial if the engine went offline, so it is comforting to know that I can call on dedicated technicians any time of the day or night.

“The facility is now generating nearly £50,000 (€58,000) a month — a highly valuable addition to the farm’s income. In addition, we have provided greater sustainability to a neighbouring farming business.”

Johan Ostlund, director at CooperOstlund, adds: “Our long and varied experience makes us specialists in CHP engine installation and maintenance. We’re able to understand the needs of an AD site and can advise the best solution for individual requirements. This approach has ensured that Greenow’s facility is now running at optimal efficiency and is performing a central role in farming activities.” l For more information:

Two of CooperOstlund’s national site servicing engineers arrive on site

This article was written by Johan Ostlund, director at CooperOstlund.

Visit: www.cooperostlund.com

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May/June 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 47

Bioenergy anaerobic digestion Food waste is a growing global issue, but fortunately solutions exist

Food, glorious food

I

n tackling London’s food waste, of which it processes 75,000 tonnes per annum, BIO Collectors’ Paul Killoughery almost nonchalantly describes the 1.7MW electricity produced as “the easiest thing we do”.

Of course there’s much more to it than that, but the efficiency and effectiveness of this trouble-free anaerobic digestion (AD) operation isn’t down to luck — the managing director and founder of London’s largest independent AD food waste recycling plant made it his business to take ownership of the system that converts all that food waste into biogas, electricity and fertiliser.

“Everybody knows that for AD, achieving the best possible mixing for your tank is the key,” says Killoughery, “and in achieving that here for the past four and half years at our site in Mitcham (situated on the border of south London and Surrey), we haven’t even spent as much as £1,000 (€1,178) on parts. Our homework has certainly paid off”.

As a newcomer to the industry, those early reconnaissance missions saw BIO Collectors make visits to key exhibitions and sites both in the UK and mainland Europe, where the company gained an extensive insight into what AD operators were experiencing.

‘No major problems’ “Very early on we decided that we definitely didn’t want mixers inside the tank that we couldn’t get to,”

48 • May/June 2017

adds Killoughery. “Naturally, we wanted our tanks to be mixed properly, but for us to manage our own plant on a day-to-day basis, and put right any wrongs, we simply had to have equipment that was easily serviceable and repairable from the outside. As it happens though, things haven’t gone wrong. We’ve had no major problems whatsoever.”

He continues: “We heard

parts right here in the UK to offer us immediate help if and when we ever need it.”

Best business model BIO Collectors’ AD operation in Surrey is unusual inasmuch that it operates along very similar lines to how the water industry generates renewable energy from sewage sludge.

The Mitcham plant began as an aerobic/composting

‘Everybody knows that for AD, achieving the best possible mixing for your tank is the key’ Paul Killoughery, owner, BIO Collectors

horror stories of crust becoming so thick that it had broken the tank, making it impossible to retrieve mixers, so we chose a proven system that wouldn’t see the development of different layers of waste within a tank.

For our regime, everything had to be mixed properly, with never any sign of a crust.

“In fact, Landia, the manufacturer we chose to work with, for their externally-mounted GasMix system, said that we could achieve our needs with three mixers, but because our philosophy is that everything has a redundancy, we decided on four: two GasMix and two separate Landia propeller mixers (also externallymounted), so that we always have back up. Another big plus for us was knowing that unlike many, Landia has the manpower and the spare

site, which worked well, but ultimately wasn’t considered to be the best business model.

After BIO Collectors bought the business, it decided to add an AD plant, creating a two-phase system that sees the aerobic treatment

pasteurise and hydrolyse the food waste, making it easier for the methane bugs to work — before pumping the liquid into the AD tanks. Whilst the vast majority of tanks rely on hydrolyzation in the AD tank, BIO Collectors already has this part of the process completed. The net result is a very significant 30%-plus reduction in retention time.

Killoughery says: “It’s not what one would choose to build from the offset, but as it does for water companies, it works very well for us. We probably do more mixing than most, and we get great gas — quickly. Energy usage was a secondary consideration, but we currently only use the Landia GasMix at a rate of five minutes on and ten minutes off — and depending on what we see and how high our gas levels are, we can choose to turn off the propeller mixers if we need to. We also use our Landia pumps to pump from our AD tank back into the AD liquor store, so we don’t need a separate pump for that task.

Landia’s externally mounted GasMix digester mixing system at BIO Collectors

Bioenergy Insight

anaerobic digestion Bioenergy everything is fully bunded, as well as having everything protected from vehicles, but the AD part of our business is still the easiest. If you understand the process and realise that the right mixing is essential, then it doesn’t have to be complicated”.

‘Top quality digestate’

Landia GasMix at BIO Collectors

“For its installation, the other advantage we saw with the Landia GasMix was that it didn’t require extra structure

for the tank, nor a concrete lid, which would have been far more complex. We’ve double-valved everything and

MECHANICAL BRIQUETTING PRESSES

The only gas-to-grid food waste operation in Greater London, and one of only three in the whole of the south east, BIO Collectors has contracts with the likes of Sainsbury’s and Pizza Hut, also collecting bulk waste from distribution centres, plus schools, hospitals and hotels, as well as liquid waste from breweries and factories. With only just more than 50% of London’s 33 borough councils collecting food waste separately, the company wants to see the same rules implemented

HYDRAULIC BRIQUETTING PRESSES

that have helped bring about vast improvements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — improvements that have left England lagging way behind with a recycling rate of just 35%.

“The result of good mixing has also produced top quality digestate,” says Killoughrey.

“It is high in NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) and very popular with the arable farms in Surrey who see increased yields. Our PAS 110 test for residual biogas conclusively shows that our mixing system is working to an extremely high standard.

It is a major benefit to the whole process.” l

For more information:

This article was written by Chris French, a freelance writer specialising in environmental topics.

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May/June 2017 • 49

Bioenergy insurance What are the fundamental concerns of the insurance industry in relation to AD?

Understanding the risks of AD

T

here is little doubt that the anaerobic digestion (AD) industry will continue to grow in momentum as the global appetite for sustainable and more environmentally-friendly energy alternatives becomes entrenched. The process of producing renewable energy in the form of a methane rich biogas from organic wastes is not without risks and insurers have embraced the sector with differing degrees of enthusiasm and levels of concern. By understanding their perception of the key risks within the industry, an operator will be positioned to mitigate against them and ensure that they can obtain the insurance coverage that is needed.

The emergence of AD as a viable energy alternative

Let’s face it; the odds are stacked against traditional fossil fuels. With a consistent spotlight on their contribution towards climate change their popularity and ongoing viability continues to dwindle.

Countries globally, and their respective governments, are succumbing to both consumer and peer pressure to significantly reduce carbon emissions, committing to annual budgets now tied to the outcomes. To achieve the targets there needs to be a change in the source of energy to supplement the more traditional mega producers; AD is one of those methods.

According to the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources

50 • May/June 2017

Duncan Gordon, account executive at the JLT Group

Association (ADBA), the industry within the UK alone grew by 21.5% to 540 operational plants in 2016; it contributed £700m (€826m) to the economy including £50-£100m in exports. AD plants range in size and output levels. Currently there are low barriers to entry for a basic plant, however tighter regulation is being proposed in numerous countries which may shift the market composition.

In coming years it is expected that there will be a smaller number of larger producers.

While this may shift the risk profile of the industry, the fundamental concerns of the insurance market are unlikely to change in the short term.

Understanding the insurance options The insurance market has been experiencing a surplus of capacity, with supply of capital exceeding the demand for risk transfer, since the

beginning of 2003. Generally, in an environment without significant losses, insurers are competing for market share resulting in broader coverage at a reduced price.

The renewable energy industry however is not benefiting from the same market conditions.

Significant losses within the waste-to-energy sector, particularly in mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plants, loose regulatory regimes and innovative (i.e. unproven) technology and production methods have seen many insurers withdraw their support for the industry.

Insurance is a means of risk transfer. It allows you to protect your business from an uncertain loss. In order to understand what coverage is required, especially in an environment where insurers are reducing coverage and/ or increasing prices, it is important to understand the risk profile of one’s business. And to know what a company’s business can do to minimise those risks before it looks to transfer them.

What concerns insurers?

Generic concerns of insurers relate mostly to the size of the plant and the type of feedstock materials used.

However, their fundamental apprehensions relate to the way in which the plant is maintained, operated and what processes are adopted.

Some risks, such as lightening and storm, are common irrespective of the size and due to their very nature are hard to

mitigate. The impact of others, such as implosion, may vary significantly and are directly attributable to the way in which the plant is built and/or operated.

While basic ‘named perils’ coverage may be appropriate for smaller AD plants in the UK for commercial reasons, larger or more complex plants require insurance coverage which is tailored to the specific risks of both the industry and the business itself using a broker leveraging insurers proven to settle complex claims.

AD plant owners and operators need to be able to distinguish their plant from the rest of the industry in order to be able to obtain the required coverage at the best terms.

Insurers will take into account matter such as: • the experience of the owners or operations and maintenance (O&M) contractor in operating AD plants • the application of standards recommended by ADBA, including the adequacy of fire precautions and separation (ideally adequate distance between engine units, substation, gas flare and other key aspects such as tanks, vessels and switchboard or control room) • the risk management plan for feedstock contract break clauses, or redirection in the event of either an incident or lack of business continuity • the manufacturer’s warranty on the engine, with specific focus on call out time for on-site service and repair

Bioenergy Insight

insurance Bioenergy Significant risks to consider when also briefing your broker will include the following; Feedstock inflow Feedstock represents significant supply and process risks for AD projects, a common trait with any energy production project.

Cutter damage is not uncommon within hoppers due to foreign objects in the feedstock. As a result of claims of this nature, insurers can look to impose on feedstock quality conditions and on projects where this is an issue: Case study As the production, storage and transport of feedstocks is reliant upon, and is often the responsibility of external suppliers not directly related to a project, there can be a risk of contamination to feedstocks. An example of this, which is a common event with plants, is concrete waste or stones appearing in grass and wheat feedstocks following harvest.

This type of contamination may cause damage in hoppers as feedstock is processed to be introduced into the primary digestate tanks.

Insurers have settled claims for damage to hopper cutter blades which have then led to the associated lost revenue whilst the hopper is repaired.

If there is no contingency of a second hopper available, then the plants output will reduce and cease until the repairs are finalised.

Digestate tanks Foaming is a significant risk in the digestate tanks for feedstock that is stereotypically confined to waste containing animal fat and starches. Blockages or solid deposits may form resulting in damage to the tank roofs. This can end in considerable financial losses for the physical damage without considering loss of production.

As a consequence, insurers

Bioenergy Insight

have sought to add foaming prevention conditions to their policies. These specify minimum risk management standards that must be observed with an example being; knock down chemicals stocked on site, and a means of injecting such chemicals into the tanks. Often these cannot be retrofitted so must be incorporated within the initial design.

In rare cases there might be more onerous expectations demanded by an insurers’ engineer, such as an overflow tank and means of transferring overspill at a greater rate than build up.

This process can be a costly addition to the plant and may be prohibited by space constraints. Mitigation of this risk post construction and assembly is costly, therefore working with your broker early in the planning stage is advantageous.

The majority of insurers understand the level and occurrence of foaming risk, therefore strong dialogue with a broker is essential to maximise the panel of insurers to offer insureds the most competitively priced, and best coverage solutions.

Case study An insurer settled a claim made by a project in its first year which involved damage to the digestate tank membrane causing it to rise

The downtime revenue loss and associated repair costs amounted to a considerable claim settlement value. It transpired that a build-up of solid deposits on the surface had not been monitored adequately and whilst running the plant at full capacity the tank membrane failed.

As a result, this particular insurer has set guidelines related to foaming prevention and overspill pumping mitigation processes. This has led to higher than usual expectations set by the insurer for any project irrespective of the feedstock utilised.

Engine risk The quality and experience of the maintenance team is especially relevant to the engine. These are typically the most expensive single component of a plant and have a long lead time for replacement.

Recent losses in this area have forced select insurers out of offering new capacity for AD projects.

Case study A gas main from the biogas digester to the site engine was undergoing maintenance.

The biogas from the digester enters into an activated carbon filter as part of the gas cleaning process before entry to the engine. This filter removes and reduces unwanted gases such as

Let’s face it; the odds are stacked against traditional fossil fuels and spring from the tank. The immediate loss of gas pressure and production continued for four months. In this time the digestate was drained to the lagoon with the membrane needing to be refabricated and reinstalled. This was followed by a repeat of the filling and digestate optimisation taking some three to four weeks.

hydrogen sulphide, to diminish engine contamination caused by corrosives formed such as sulphuric acid.

The carbon filter was left open to the atmosphere during maintenance. A major fire was caused due to the filter expelling dust and debris prior to igniting and causing flames. The fire spread to

the rest of the building, burning the entire engine, switch room and housing.

An element which rapidly increased the fires progress was that the housing was built from timber panels which had been a request of local planners. As the fire occurred overnight there was a prolonged delay before the alarm was noticed by the offsite operator and therefore the fire brigade faced a lost battle when arriving at the site.

As a mitigation step the manufacturer’s carbon filter maintenance guide should have been followed fully to avoid spontaneous or self-combustion. If the filter has been left open to the atmosphere then either new carbon or carbon with hydrogen sulphide may oxidise and cause heating.

Monitoring the temperature shortly and for a period after replacement - applying water to cool a temperature rise is a key part of the guidelines.

In summary By being able to minimise a firm’s exposure to industry risks, and clearly articulating the processes and protocols, the firm will be able to unlock all of the limited market capacity available for renewable energy risks.

By developing a strong working relationship and maintaining open communication with a broker and insurer(s), from planning through construction and on an operational basis, not only will an operator develop a better understanding of their risk transfer options, the operator will be able to obtain the most appropriate insurance coverage to protect their business from any significant losses. l

For more information:

This article was written by Duncan Gordon, account executive at the JLT Group. Visit: www.jltspecialty.com

May/June 2017 • 51

Bioenergy finance In the current renewable energy climate, optimising anaerobic digestion (AD) plant efficiency is of the utmost importance. Here, one AD management expert talks us through the challenges and successes since taking on the operation of the East of England’s biggest gas to grid AD plant

Making the most of your AD investment

E

llough AD is a five megawatt AD plant based in Beccles, Suffolk, UK, operating on a diet of 80,000 tonnes of sugar beet, maize and rye per year.

Derek Burgoyne, owner and director of AD management company BioCow, has been operating the plant for just over 12 months, on behalf of Ellough AD Plant which is majority owned

by Privilege Finance.

Burgoyne says:“BioCow is an all-encompassing AD business that manages the overall operation of the site. Before the plant was purchased by our long-standing partners Privilege Finance, it had been operating at a third of the potential output, but at nearly double the input.

“We worked with Privilege Finance in order to turn it around, and really get the utmost potential from the digesters. That included revisiting everything, from the way the plant was operated and seeing where efficiencies could be made, to understanding what improvements could be made to customer and supplier relations.”

Overcoming challenges Ellough AD comprises four primary digesters and a secondary digester, producing a flow rate of 1,200 cubes per hour of biomethane from

52 • May/June 2017

Derek Burgoyne, owner and director of BioCow

approximately 240 tonnes per day of feedstock.

Burgoyne explains that the plant is currently operating at about 95% output, with allowances for mechanical downtime for maintenance and servicing. However, reaching this outstanding level of operation in a relatively short period of time, at large scale hasn’t been without its challenges.

He says: “One of the

biggest challenges has been to reduce downtime and maximise gas output.

“When we first took over the operation of the plant, we would receive up to 50 alerts for mechanical or processing errors a day.

We’re now proud to say that this has been reduced down to two or three a week.

“The plant has the technical ability to tell us where a fault has occurred, but sometimes that doesn’t address the source of the problem.

Therefore, we’ve spent time and attention on tracking down the source of each and every issue. Reacting to the problems when they happen, and building in pro-active monitoring and avoidance measures and means.

“As a result, and among other things, Privilege and ourselves have invested in replacing all of the feeding modules from solid feeders, which can require significant and regular maintenance and downtime, to liquid feeders, which included replacing all the mechanical augers with high pressure pumps.

“These upgrades across the

‘An AD plant is a big investment for any business, so it’s important to ensure that it is running as efficiently and profitably as possible’ Phil Gerrard, CEO of Privilege Finance

plant have resulted in fewer blockages, less stones in the system, and overall much less planned, and unplanned, downtime.

“Through our design and innovation capabilities, we’ve been able to utilise elements of the existing system, and upgrade key elements for improved performance. In fact, the original contractors who supplied the equipment remain at the plant in maintenance roles and are highly complementary of the changes made.

“For example, we have a pre-digestion process where all of the solid feed is mixed with the recirculated heated digestate from the process, meaning the feedstock is being fed to the digester at an optimum temperature.

“This has improved the efficiency of the digestion system, as the bugs don’t have to work as hard to digest the material. When a digester is operating at 45°C, and even a small amount of cold feedstock is pumped into the system, it can slow down the whole process.”

Working with the farming community Ellough AD has also streamlined its feedstock requirements through building on the relationships with the around 40 local farmers who supply the crops.

“We’ve reduced the

Bioenergy Insight

finance Bioenergy the resources that we already have, and extracting that last percentage of yield.”

Commenting on the plant’s performance, Phil Gerrard, CEO of Privilege Finance, says: “It’s fantastic for both Privilege and BioCow to see the plant continuously improving. Unfortunately, poor digester efficiency is something we’re seeing more and more of in the industry.

“An AD plant is a big investment for any business, so it’s important to ensure that it is running as efficiently and profitably as possible.”

Ellough AD plant based in Beccles, Suffolk, UK

Secrets to success

feedstock tonnage requirements by nearly half since we took over the operation of the plant,” explains Burgoyne.

He adds: “We’ve achieved this by letting the farmers do what they do best — growing the best possible crop that they can, and managing the harvesting, clamping and delivery of the feedstock.

“It’s a lesson learned from previous experiences, before meeting Privilege. We’re not crop farmers, and by allowing the farms flexibility to manage everything up to delivery to the weighbridge, it results in a much more efficient and cost effective process for all parties. This is giving better yields and increased dry matter content.

“The variables are also taken out of the feedstock quality, as it can be significantly affected by harvesting at the wrong time, to the wrong specification and by poor clamp management. It’s better for the farmers to manage what they do well, which is to produce a good quality crop, and for us to do what we do well and extract the energy from it.

“A big consideration of the AD process is the production of large amounts of organic fertiliser in the form of digestate, which we’ve capitalised on as a commodity.

“This liquid digestate

Burgoyne explains how Biocow’s background in farming has helped in his approach to AD optimisation.

“We draw on our background in livestock management within our daily work with the AD plant, and would recommend that others do the same.

“The plant should be treated like a living animal, and not just as a machine or piece of equipment. There are millions of bacteria within an AD tank that need nurturing and if you feed it wrong or it gets too cold, the bacteria will die.

“Being hands on in the AD plant’s operation is also vital.

Every digester is different and will have slight nuances in its operation, and therefore textbook methodology will only go so far. I’d recommend that operators really take the time to get to know the plant, and recognise what works and what doesn’t through experience.

“Finally, an AD plant should always have your full attention. It’s a living and breathing process from day one, and therefore, regular monitoring and attention to detail will ensure that it continues to operate efficiently and effectively,” he concludes. l

Bioenergy Insight

Ellough AD produces a flow rate of 1,200 cubes per hour of biomethane

supplies useful amounts of nitrogen, phosphate, potash and sulphur, along with all-important trace elements, at a fraction of the cost of artificial fertilisers, which is readily available for use as a bio-fertiliser.

“Our farmer suppliers use this digestate back on the crops, which can help improve yields and plant health, grown for the AD facility and stored for use in seasons to come.

It’s a more sustainable model, and a bit like the ‘circle of life’, now being referred to as the ‘circular economy’.”

Staying one step ahead As the gas output and quality of Ellough AD has improved, it has brought with it new challenges, explains Burgoyne.

“The increased level of biogas produced has meant that we needed to increase the capacity of the existing gas clean-up operation before it can be exported to the grid as biomethane.

“In order to achieve this, we’ve reduced gas temperature from 50°c to 5°c, by installing a chiller on the gas line. As we’re pre-cooling the gas, the clean-up system can operate much more efficiently, as its energy is focused on cleaning rather than chilling.

“We’re also increasing the capacity of the plant to 1,500 cubic metres per hour, through the conversation of an existing storage tank into a sixth digester. The first stage of this work is done, and the tank is seeded.

We’re now in the process of building up the bacterial activity within the tank itself, and given time, the gas will now continue to build up.

“This additional digester will allow us to process liquid digestate that has retained gas and process leachate from the solid feedstock run off, and produce gas from it, acting like another stage of digestion.

“Our approach has been, and will continue to be, focused on extracting more gas with

For more information:

This article was written by Privilege Finance. Visit: www.biocow.co.uk

May/June 2017 • 53

Bioenergy biogas project Customised gas storage solutions

Green storage

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he success of a biogas project heavily depends on how carefully the specific requirements that each project has are considered during planning and construction of the plant.

Standard solutions often are not the optimum fit for the specific needs of the operator. As this is true for the most part of equipment used on biogas plants, it is also true for the design of the gas storage. Double membrane gas storages can be considered as state-of-theart in biogas and wastewater treatment applications.

The gas storage is not only the buffer for equalising different gas production and consumption rates, it also sets the operation pressure of the gas system for plant. Choosing the right operation pressure is therefore an important task during the planning of the plant. It influences the energy consumption the plant, the operation of gas consumers and is also relevant for the stability of the membrane structure.

Choosing higher operation pressures can have advantages in overall process design. It allows operating emergency flares without pressure intensifiers (which would

Engineering by Sattler 3D simulation tool

54 • May/June 2017

have to be connected to a back-up system) and it gives high stability on the membrane structure to resist wind and snow loads. But it doesn’t have only upsides: high constant operation pressures increase the energy consumption on the plant and have higher requirements on gas seals.

If it is required to maintain a low operation pressure <5mbar, the geometrical shape of the gas storage has to be considered. The typical standalone gas storage has the geometrical form of a ¾ sphere. This form maximises the useful volume and minimises the required space. Sattler’s controlled inner membrane design also allows for very precise filling level measurement, as the controlled inner membrane delivers a predicable membrane movement. At low operation pressures at <5mbar, the ¾ sphere has the tendency to wobble during high winds. This problem has to be tackled before constructing a low pressure standalone unit.

Non-predictable membrane movement Using sophisticated analysis software, the engineers at

AD Plant built by Biogest Energie- und Wassertechnik GmbH

Installation of Sattler ½ sphere double membrane gas storage

Sattler made simulations and found the most effective solution is to change the geometrical form to a ½ sphere. This form and its specific behaviour during wind events is well known from tank mounted units and proven to be extremely stable also at low pressures and high wind events. Also, the problem of non-predicable membrane movement in this geometrical form was already solved for the ½ sphere tank mounted units of Sattler design.

A multipoint measurement with several sensors placed on the surface of the inner membrane detects the height of each single spot on the membrane. By taking the median values of several measurement spots the state of the inner membrane can be

detected very precisely and converted accurately into an actual stored gas volume.

The challenge of low pressure standalone gas storages also applies to plant extensions. The existing plants often have tank mounted double membrane gas storage roofs which operate on very low operation pressures.

The new standalone unit is supposed to communicate with pre-existing storages and has to work with their existing requirements on operating pressure. In these cases, customised solutions for the gas storage equipment is key in order to have a successful project. l For more information:

This article was written by Armin Schöllauf, sales manager at Sattler.

Visit: www.sattler-ceno-toptex.com

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May/June 2017 • 55

Bioenergy opinion

Planning permission: How to get approval The growth of anaerobic digestion — overcoming some of the planning barriers

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s a specialist chartered surveyor and town planner I have been advising clients for many years on the best ways of securing planning consent for a variety of different projects.

Over the past 6-7 years we have submitted a substantial number of applications for renewable energy schemes including many anaerobic digestion (AD) plants powered by a variety of different feedstocks.

This article takes a look at one of the barriers to overcome when considering investment in an AD plant — the not inconsiderable hurdle of securing planning consent.

I can remember back to the days when gaining planning permission was a fairly straightforward process, whereby the local planning officer met you on site to discuss the project and the options available. A paper application would then be submitted, which in many cases required some basic drawings, a letter, a form and a short wait before planning permission was issued.

I am afraid those days are gone and the process is now much more complex, depending on type and scale of project envisaged. The following sections of this article aim to illustrate some of the key changes involved in securing planning consent and how to give your application the best chance of success.

Pre-application Cuts to local authority budgets now mean that most planning

56 • May/June 2017

officers are reluctant to meet on site until a formal pre-application submission has been made to the local planning office. Many councils also charge for this service.

As a consultant, I try to encourage clients to take advantage of the preapplication (or pre-app) consultation service, even though in many cases it is almost like a mini planning application in its own right as we produce plans, statements and forms. The benefits of pre-app are that you get to

impact assessment, odour impact report, drainage assessment, etc. These studies will have a cost so it is important to assess from an early stage the level of detail required.

Bearing in mind that with the advent of the internet and easy access to planning application documentation on-line it is important that you can demonstrate that an AD plant will not adversely affect the quality of life of local residents or the wider community. Engagement

Controversial schemes can sometimes generate large volumes of objection meet your planning officer face to face and can carefully explain the benefits of the project and give them chance to assess your site.

This is normally followed up by a written response which will give guidance on the information to submit with a full application.

It may also be required, depending on the scale of the project, to submit a scoping and screening assessment at an early stage. This will generate a screening opinion which determines whether an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is required.

Where possible we try to avoid the need for an EIA by providing a full suite of supporting reports and information. This depends on the application but may include studies such as an acoustic assessment, transport

with statutory authorities such as the Environment Agency at an early stage is also recommended.

Community engagement This leads smoothly into the sometimes-thorny subject of community engagement. Where possible we try to engage with local residents and parish councils at a timely point prior to submission of a planning application. This enables the detail of the project to be discussed and any perceived issues debated. The main issues of concern relating to AD schemes are normally related to traffic, odour, noise and visual impact, and measures need to be taken to ensure that these issues are fully explained and what action is being taken to mitigate any impacts.

By way of a brief review,

below is a more detailed review of each area of assessment together with advice on how to approach each element to improve your chances of a successful outcome.

Traffic AD plants vary from a small scale farm-based scheme to a large scale commercial food waste plant taking 50,000 — 100,000 tonnes of feedstock.

Traffic will vary according to site specifics but it is important to assess the existing site movements and then predict the future traffic and how this will vary with harvest times, emptying of digestate lagoons, filling reception bunkers, etc.

Small scale farm schemes may only be fed by tractor/ trailer and tanker deliveries.

In contrast, large scale sites may be fed by HGVs and large tankers which means fewer movements due to the volumes that each vehicle can carry. This is where it is important to supply a full transport study which can assess local road movements, speeds and capacities and provide accurate figures for future movements.

Planning conditions may restrict movements to certain times of the day and it is also worth investigating the opportunities for removal of products such as digestate in backloads to minimise overall traffic.

Visual impact The level of information required to cover visual impact

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opinion Bioenergy

depends on the scale of project but even a small 50kW tank may require some screening to mitigate its influence on the locality. For larger scale schemes a landscape visual assessment is normally required to assess the views into the site from key vantage points and to show with the aid of photomontages how the plant will sit within the landscape.

It is important to identify any key local views, public footpaths, impacts on listed buildings and the colour of materials.

Setting tanks down, using sensitive colour choices and implementing a sympathetic landscaping scheme will all help to mitigate visual impact.

Odour The process of AD takes places in sealed tanks and therefore odour from this element of the site will be negligible.

Public perception of odour is normally much more extreme than the reality with objectors to schemes often using odour as a key issue to argue against a plant.

Location is key as any odour will dissipate over distance.

Most farm schemes have very low odour potential and smells can be minimised through good management protocols. Plants that accept feedstocks with the potential for odour emissions such as some food waste products can be mitigated by storing feedstocks in sealed reception buildings with air extracted to biofilters; this

Bioenergy Insight

can however increase costs.

Odour from digestate is normally low but again can be mitigated by covering tanks and lagoons and by ensuring the feedstock is fully digested. We will often supply an odour impact assessment to show that smell will not create any adverse impacts.

Noise The issue of noise as with odour can normally be mitigated and again is very site specific. Farm AD plants by their nature are mainly located in countryside locations where background noise levels are low. Therefore it is important to assess background noise levels and how plant machinery and equipment

will impact on the locality.

Specialist acoustic consultants can supply a noise impact assessment and this is often very useful in establishing background noise levels and suggesting ways that noise can be minimised.

This can include acoustic enclosures, bunds, exhaust baffles, etc. to ensure that noise is kept to a minimum.

Other issues that may require some element of supporting information relate to elements such as drainage, ecology, trees, flood risk, archaeology and pollution control. It is important to carry out a thorough assessment of each element as part of the pre-application research and then gauge the level of supporting information required. This may include specialist technical input.

Application submission Once a planning application is submitted the local planning authority will check it against local validation requirements.

It is crucial to ensure that all the required information is submitted in a timely way to prevent later delays.

The application will then

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go through a consultation process where local residents and statutory consultees have the opportunity to comment and support or object to the scheme. This is another vital stage as close monitoring of the application is required to give time to respond to any questions and comments.

Controversial schemes can sometimes generate large volumes of objection.

It is up to the planning officer to consider the relevance and importance of objections and weigh up their importance and relevance.

Overall, it is important to remember that current planning policies and incentives are still strongly in support of renewable energy projects that minimise local impacts. However, as the planning process becomes less straightforward it is vital to examine projects from every angle prior to submission and to engage with key agencies, the local planning authority and the local community. l

For more information:

This article was written by Stephen Locke, chartered surveyor and chartered town planner at Stephen Locke Associates. Visit: www.stephenlockeassociates.co.uk

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technology Bioenergy Pioneering pasteurisation process generates energy and water

Wastewater power

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Californian company is pioneering pasteurisation as a third-stage wastewater treatment. Pasteurization Technology Group (PTG) has patented a two-forone process which heats wastewater to kill pathogens as well as generating lower cost power for industrial and municipal treatment plants.

The PTG system combines eco-friendly wastewater disinfection with renewable energy generation. The patented system runs on natural gas or biogas and heats wastewater to 74-80˚C, killing microorganisms and pathogens.

The wastewater treatment system is designed to recycle heat, making it extremely energy efficient. Water is treated to a high standard making it available for reuse.

PTG chief financial officer Tim Kingsbury says: “The system recycles heat over and over. We estimate the heat generated is reused 40-50 times. That is what makes the system so effective and makes it pay for itself. You can disinfect wastewater cheaply while generating low-cost electricity and saving money.

“The PTG system has been shown to cut energy costs by half while saving up to 75% of the cost of wastewater disinfection. It is a chemicalfree, non-toxic way of disinfecting water which is a real alternative to other tertiary treatments such as UV, which is energy intensive, and chlorine, which can leave residual traces in water.”

pilot project at the City of Ventura, California, in a disinfection plant processing 1.9ml per day. The results suggest a full-sized PTG system could generate enough electricity to power the whole plant — at half the current cost of $900,000 (€847,000) per year. Using pasteurisation would also save the city $250,000 a year on chemical costs.

Another pilot project has taken place in the city of Melbourne, Australia, where the pasteurisation process has been found effective against giardia and cryptosporidium. After 15 seconds at 55˚C, researchers reported a complete kill of both pathogens.

In 2014, the first full-size PTG system was installed at Graton, California. At Golden Road, the largest craft brewery in Los Angeles, a PTG B-200 system was installed, generating 200kWh of electricity to supply 90%

of the needs of the plant.

Electricity costs have been reduced by 60%, while boiler costs have been reduced by 80%. The savings will add up to more than $9m over 20 years, helping the brewery to become energy neutral.

Expansion potential Kingsbury says: “Becoming energy neutral is becoming a goal for many industries and utilities around the world which is one of the reasons we believe there is great potential for this technology. Pasteurisation is a clean technology which treats wastewater to a high standard, which means it can be reused and recycled – for agricultural uses for example.

“In future the company is looking to expand into other markets, to find new industrial partners and attract investors. Pilot projects are also currently taking place into using this technology as

part of the drinking water treatment process.”

‘Water energy nexus’ Paul O’Callaghan, founder and CEO of BlueTech Research, says: “Wastewater processing is very energy intensive so there is a great deal of potential for innovations which target the water energy nexus.

“In the right circumstances PTG can substantially cut energy costs as well as providing an effective low cost alternative to other forms of third-stage wastewater treatment. As populations increase BlueTech predicts clean tech systems such as this will become increasingly important as a way to preserve and protect existing resources.” l For more information:

This article was written by Alison Ireland, business development director at BlueTech Research. Visit: https://ptgwaterandenergy.com

Electricity generation The PTG system has been installed in a large-scale

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Pasteurization Technology Group’s wastewater treatment system

May/June 2017 • 59

Bioenergy anaerobic digestion

AD challenges in Brexit Britain Prime Minister Theresa May began a two-year countdown to Brexit on 29 March, 2017, when she triggered Article 50 kicking off a frantic period of legislation in Westminster and negotiation with Brussels

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any people in the UK are keeping a close eye on Brexit negotiations and anaerobic digestion (AD) operators are no exception.

Recent postulations about the future of waste management legislation leave the sector’s future somewhat ambiguous.

The problem is this: there are 800 pieces of existing EU environmental legislation, all of which need to become part of UK law. But the Environmental Audit Committee has recently speculated that around a third of this is nontransferable. This means that new laws will have to be drawn up and passed to make sure that all existing environmental protections are maintained or improved upon. The challenge continues because the two thirds that can be absorbed have the potential to become ‘zombie legislation’ — policy and guidance that can’t be amended and therefore run the risk of becoming ineffectual and outdated.

AD relies on a strong and resilient waste management sector to operate effectively and needs support from legislation to enable it to form productive partnerships with waste producers. In light of this,

60 • May/June 2017

Brexit negotiations present something of a two-pronged challenge for AD: navigating upcoming legislative hurdles and continuing to forge relationships with local authorities and businesses in the face of ongoing financial constraints.

The policy and legislation challenge Brexit will undoubtedly be a mammoth undertaking for policymakers in the UK. But for those within AD and the wider waste management sector, the problem goes beyond this. Environmental protections are unlikely to be a priority for the government. Establishing new business links and international trade deals is at the forefront of its agenda.

Initiatives that promote recycling or responsible waste practices are in danger of being ignored or forgotten and this would be a disaster for the waste industry not to mention the UK environment.

That’s not to say that the government is cold to the idea of effective waste management legislation, but among the clamour of different departments vying to ensure that their interests are best represented, it will be easy to

overlook this area. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) which governs the recycling and waste initiatives that have the potential to support AD, is a small department and runs the risk of being drowned out among other, bigger voices.

And waste management is not traditionally an issue that captures the imaginations of voters. If the NHS, schools, immigration and security are all popular publically, it is likely that politicians will align with these causes instead.

But to ignore the importance of recycling and the growing issue of unavoidable waste is a mistake. The UK’s landfill space is predicted to be full by 2020 and, with millions of tonnes of food waste produced annually, sending the majority of this to landfill or incineration only exacerbates the problem.

Put simply, the waste hierarchy needs to be enforced. A waste action plan from the government that brings consistency to the way waste is treated, favouring the use of AD and similar technologies over landfill or incineration, could make a huge difference. Indeed, the Waste & Resources Action Programme’s

Bioenergy Insight

anaerobic digestion Bioenergy (WRAP) 2016 Framework for Greater Consistency in Household Recycling for England made similar recommendations.

It detailed the significant benefits of increased consistency in waste management — predicting around eight million tonnes of food waste alone could be diverted from landfill or incineration if adopted nationally.

WRAP’s framework was intelligent and well-thought out but the country shouldn’t have to rely on charities to provide waste management solutions and changes shouldn’t only come from voluntary initiatives. Legislation needs to promote and enforce a joined up approach and the government has a golden opportunity to do this when forming its new post-Brexit legislation.

Working with waste producers during budget restrictions Austerity is still in evidence throughout the UK and experts have forecast increased economic strain on the country if a favourable Brexit deal can’t be reached. As it stands, budgets across government departments and local authorities are being consistently squeezed and it’s not for nothing that recycling rates recently fell. This should be a wake-up call to councils that recycling rates won’t grow organically.

The UK generates more than 10 million tonnes of food waste every year, which can originate from people’s supermarket buys to what they eat in restaurants.

Forty per cent of this is estimated to be unavoidable waste – meat bones, peelings, table scraps etc. Most of this gets sent to landfill, incineration or put down a drain. And with subsidy support for AD being capped and local authorities increasingly looking to scrap segregated collections, the effects are being felt in the waste management industry.

But throwing this much food away isn’t just wasteful, it’s financially unsound. Tamar believes that any food that can be eaten should be. But for unavoidable waste that can’t be eaten, AD has the capacity to take these scraps and recycle them into green energy and an organic bio-fertiliser.

Lots of people in the industry are fighting for AD subsidies to be increased and deployment caps to be removed in a bid to secure continuing viability for the sector, therefore making it more effective. But Tamar would argue that this isn’t the long term solution the UK needs — especially considering the further funding restrictions that are

Bioenergy Insight

likely in store for the waste management industry over the next few years.

If local authorities, waste collectors and AD companies worked together towards the same common goal, much more unavoidable food waste would go to the lowest cost recycling option.

This would boost the viability of the AD industry and save valuable funds for cash-strapped authorities. And there really are financial gains to be had from such a joined up solution.

A recent trial by Gloucestershire Joint Waste Partnership distributed stickers and pro-recycling bin hangers across a test area. The results were remarkable with one district increasing its food waste collection rates by 30% in just a few months.

A simple measure, yet clearly effective and relatively low-cost. It also serves as a reminder that people do need to be encouraged to recycle, especially their food waste.

Brexit will undoubtedly be a mammoth undertaking for policymakers in the UK Nonetheless, looking to implement segregated waste collections can of course be a daunting prospect for authorities both from a financial and logistical standpoint. WRAP is a great resource here and provides guidance, materials and funding for authorities who require it. For example, in 2016 it awarded £30,000 (€35,700) to South Northants Council to help fund pro-recycling stickers and leaflets for almost 40,000 homes.

Households are not the only waste producers and food businesses across the UK could also make changes. Food businesses produce a significant tonnage of waste every year and, while naturally very good at getting the most from ingredients and reducing any scraps, there will always be unavoidable waste that needs to be disposed of. Lower gate fees should be an attractive option for disposing of large amounts of food waste and it makes keen business sense to take advantage of these by using AD. Boosting their green credentials is an added benefit for many businesses, whose client-base is increasingly aware of this when choosing a brand.

Some forward-thinking businesses are already attune to the benefits of

food waste recycling and handmade frozen ready meal producer, COOK, is a prime example. It’s partnered with Tamar to recycle 100% of the food waste produced in its kitchen. All done on-site with a specialised waste management system, chefs can recycle scraps straight from the kitchen with fortnightly collections taking it straight to AD. Regulations that support a more environmentally-friendly approach would help to ensure this happens. Scotland is already leading the way on this; it recently amended the law to require food businesses producing 5kg of food waste or more each week to recycle it. Seeing similar requirements implemented in England could make a huge difference.

The way forward Examples of success stories aren’t hard to find and some great work is being done to promote the waste hierarchy and send waste to more useful destinations than landfill. As a country, the UK is relatively skilled at achieving resource efficiency — one of the strongest performing member states, according to a recent European Environmental Implementation Review. And while the country is making progress in achieving its 2020 environmental targets, if these cease to carry any weight post-Brexit the UK needs a robust alternative in place.

There’s guidance and even funding for local authorities who want to boost recycling in their area and evidence shows that there are significant cost savings to be made from diverting food from landfill and incineration – it would certainly be better for the UK as a whole.

But when it comes down to it, the only institution that can really effect widespread and long-term change is the government. We need it to rise to the challenge posed by Brexit and put in place legislation that protects the waste hierarchy and drives forward progress. This means proper enforcement and incentives for businesses and local authorities that encourage producers to form direct partnerships with waste recyclers like AD companies.

Brexit is unavoidable and whether you campaigned for or against it, this surely has to represent a real opportunity to build upon European legislation, bettering it where the industry can. l

For more information:

This article was written by Dean Hislop, chief executive at Tamar Energy. Visit: www.tamar-energy.com

May/June 2017 • 61

Bioenergy plant design opinion Concrete tanks — how to chose the right one for you?

Tank options

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lmost every biogas plant that handles liquid substrate has one or more round tanks, where the substrate is mixed in the most efficient way to maximise the biogas it produces. A round tank is ideal for biogas digesters as its shape ensures that the entire material is consistently mixed. You wouldn’t want a rectangular tank which clogs all the solids in the corners, would you?

There is a variety of tank options on the market, but we, at Wolf System, consider that concrete is the ideal material for building such a reservoir, due to its reliability and well proven capabilities over many years of use.

This article is intended to help people involved in designing a biogas plant, in order to better understand what they need to consider during the plants planning phase, and what they need to know before having their tank built.

Tank dimension One important part of the design process is choosing the tanks dimensions. There are many factors to consider in order to do this, some of which I will briefly mention.

Depending on the mixing technology, as well as the substrate materials and the required retention time, a certain tank volume is calculated. On top of the required tank retention volume, always need to be taken into account about 50 - 100cm of freeboard at the top section of the tank, to ensure that the gas pipes can be casted in at the top part of tank wall to collect the

62 • May/June 2017

In-situ concrete tanks built by Wolf System

gas, but more importantly to ensure that, due to mixing, the liquid inside will not overflow above the top of the wall.

After finding the right volume for the tanks, the amount of space available on the site needs to be studied.

If space is a problem, higher tanks should be considered, but if plenty of space is available, the case of many British farms, the suggestion would be to go with the most cost effective height, which is around 6-8 metres.

Site conditions Tanks arrangement on the site is also very important. Many people are preoccupied by getting access to the tanks during the construction phase, but an experienced plant designer considers also good access to the tanks during the entire plant lifetime. In a couple of years something might, or better said, will go wrong, requiring exchanging a major component like the

mixer or the gas holder, so good access for unplanned works is definitely a time and cost saver which needs to be considered from the very beginning.

As it happens with every construction, ground conditions can have a major impact on both the building design as well as the final costs. It is true that, when planning a biogas plant you often cannot choose the ground, but you have to make it work using what you are given — the farm where you are planning to build your next plant might be on Scottish rock solid ground or a nearby muddy Humber estuary.

Regardless of the plant’s location, an early ground investigation might save you from a large headache later.

The ground investigation might recommend a piled foundation, and that is better to be known, budgeted and planed in advance, than to get the entire plant works delayed, if you find

out about this too late.

Building the tank partially underground should be no problem for it. However, if one chooses to do so, a lot of attention is necessary to keep the groundwater under control. You might wonder “what has groundwater to do with the tank?” Water alone is no problem for the concrete tank, but the groundwater pressure can seriously damage the tank by lifting its base up and cracking it. This issue can occur when the tank is empty (during planned maintenance for example), if the groundwater level is higher than the tanks base. Reparations in this case would be fairly expensive, not counting the loss of production and the environmental issues associated with such an issue.

The best way to prevent this is by getting reliable data before construction from the ground investigation and, if necessary, by taking appropriate measures,

Bioenergy Insight

plant design opinion Bioenergy like installing a drainage system around the tank.

Building the tank in a hilly area needs additional consideration, as there sometimes occur situations when the tanks backfilling is not evenly made all around the tank, but with differences of a couple of meters between opposite sides of the tank. This can be done, but depending on the tanks dimensions and the backfilling height difference, some small changes will need to be made by the tank designer. Due to their massive structure, in-situ concrete tanks built by Wolf System can easily withstand the forces coming from uneven backfilling, compared to other types of tanks.

Insight The raw biogas produced inside a tank is highly corrosive to the materials the tank is manufactured of. In case of steel components, high quality steel needs to be used to prevent damage, but a concrete tank can be built of standard materials, and then it just needs a protection foil or a resistant coating in the gas area.

It is always advisable that all wall penetrations shall be done at the same time when

the tank is built. However, we all know that changes often occur, sometimes even after the tank is completed.

This raises a major problem with the steel or pre-casted tanks, as they are very restrictive when it comes to openings in the wall. In-situ concrete tanks have the big advantage of flexibility, as new wall penetrations can be core drilled in the tankâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wall at a later stage. This should be always made only after discussing with the tank manufacturer, but in most of the cases it should not be a major issue for in-situ concrete tanks.

The above mentioned details should be basic knowledge for every plant designer. However, practice has taught us at Wolf System that often one or more of the points mentioned above have been neglected by the plant designers, which in the end always lead to delays and increased costs for the end client.

Tank design life All tanks manufacturers are advertising their products to have a very long design life.

Although these statements are not completely untrue, there are some small details which need to be addressed,

in particular when it comes to the necessary maintenance.

For example, any steel construction has its connections between different parts made with screws. It is well known the fact that these connections need to be checked from time to time, as the screws tend to loosen up in time, mostly due to the vibrations in the structure. Concrete tanks on the other side do not have this issue, as there are no screws, and their massiveness can withstand the vibrations caused by both the mixers as well as those made by the liquid moving inside the tank.

A constant reoccurring issue for both steel tanks and prefabricated concrete tanks is the joint between two adjoining panels. The sealing material used for the gap between the panels, although advertised as a long-life solution, has often created problems as the liquid inside the tank started to leak through even the smallest non-conformity of the joint seal. Even though at the beginning there seems to be no problem, the sealing material will lose its sealing properties over a long period of time, meaning that these issues occur often only after the tank is out of guarantee, which leads to costly and

complicated reparation works for the end user many years after commissioning, not to mention what the Environment Agency will have to say about this. Insitu concrete tanks, like the ones built by Wolf System, do not have this issue, as there are no panels which need to be joined together, while for the gaps between two concrete pours there are some very simple, yet very reliable solutions which can be used only while working with fresh concrete on site.

Choosing the best tank for you As the tanks are a major component of the plant, choosing the right supplier is no easy task. For many people the decision is simple: best price wins. However, this approach is too simplistic for the complexity of the task. As a new tank is an essential investment which will have a major impact on your business on the long term, the tanks quality is of highest importance.

Wolf System has designed and built its own formwork for cylindrical tanks and silos construction, which ensures the highest possible tightness from the very beginning as, unlike traditional formwork systems, does not use anchors through the wall, and has also the advantage of getting the tank built in a very short time, while at the same time working at the highest health and safety standards. This system has been used and constantly improved more than 50 years, while building up to 5,000 concrete tanks and silos per year across Europe. Although there are many options on the market, who is better to deliver such an important part of your plant, if not Wolf System, the largest in-situ concrete tank producer in Europe? l For more information:

Concrete tanks built by Wolf System for Qila Energyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s AD plant in Inverness, Scotland

Bioenergy Insight

This article was written by Bogdan Moldovan, project manager at Wolf Systembau. Visit: www.wolfsystem.at

May/June 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 63

Bioenergy anaerobic digestion The transition of the UK’s anaerobic digestion market under the microscope

From project build to asset management

I

t is no great surprise that with the continual tariff degression and the general lack of renewables support from the government, the anaerobic digestion (AD) industry remains in the doldrums. Whilst there has been positive movements within the sector with a planned short-term increase in the feed in tariff (FiT) and Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) tariff, prolonging the viability of the technology in a tariff-dependent circumstance, the delays to the revised legislation continue to create uncertainty.

AD4Energy is a British firm that has predominantly focused on designing, building and commissioning AD plants.

The company also offers accompanying AD services, such as pre-contract support services that include obtaining grid connections, Environment Agency (EA) permits and planning permissions; as well as planned preventative maintenance services that include mechanical and biological servicing.

For a long time the company has concentrated on providing and building AD plants, with the additional services being the secondary priority and focus. However, as demonstrated by the FiT queue, the demand for new build projects has slowed, with support to the already built plants becoming a greater focus for day to day work.

Notwithstanding this, it continues to pleasantly surprise the company at recent exhibitions that there is still a demand and interest

64 • May/June 2017

in new build AD plants. It is important for those who are considering investing in the technology that they have a use for the heat and electricity, as well as ensuring that 50% of the feedstock is compiled from waste products (i.e. slurry or food waste).

Market research

In the previous rush to build plants before tariff deadlines, many sites have not been optimised for either compliance, maintenance or even operational efficiency.

The company has noted through market research and conversations with new and existing clients that there is a requirement for biological and mechanical services, and consultancy services such as design and DSEAR (Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations) studies.

In recent months AD4Energy has seen a significant increase in demand for their maintenance and consultancy services. The company has secured grid connections, environmental permits, planning applications and pre-accreditation for FiTs and RHI for existing and external customers. There has also been an increase in enquiries for mechanical and biological support and servicing, especially from those who are existing AD plant owners.

Operators are coming to realise that it is crucial to have an effective maintenance programme in place when it comes to the operation and health of the digester.

Operators are coming to realise that it is crucial to have an effective maintenance programme in place when it comes to the operation and health of the digester

Breakdowns are not only costly but also the EA and insurance providers are now looking for evidence that plants have planned maintenance in place.

For example: If an existing 165kW AD plant has 1 week downtime, it would lose out on £5,544.00 of income (Feed in Tariff and Export Tariff) 20p/kWh x 24h x 165kW x 7 days = £5,544.00 On top of this will be the costs of repairs, which could have been avoided. Further to this, there has been growth in consultancy based enquires to the company for services such as design, technical advice and carrying out compliance studies. Current AD plant owners are recognising that now the EA, health and safety and insurance companies are looking to see whether documentation, drawings and general compliance are in place. Whilst when originally built many plants had complete as-built designs, maintenance plans and DSEAR/ATEX zoning in place, subsequent plant

modifications mean this information is now out of date. There is also an expectation that all safety equipment has had an annual third-party maintenance inspection. This is not only on relief valves, but also on gas alarms and detectors, pressure vessels, as well as the electrical installation.

The aim for AD4Energy’s future growth is to become an established all-round AD service provider to existing plant owners and those who are looking to invest in the technology. The predominate focus for the company is to support an industry which is maturing and transitioning from development into an asset management based business; providing support with pre-contract services, such as planning and pre-accreditation; to mechanical and biological services. AD4Energy will also continue to design, build and commission their tailor-made anaerobic digestion plants. l For more information:

This article was written by Rachel Williams, HR and marketing assistant at AD4Energy. Visit: www.ad4energy.com

Bioenergy Insight

xxxxxx Bioenergy Co-Locating shows

Anaerobic digestion and biogas is the only sustainable energy source which can directly satisfy as many as 9 of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals whilst recycling wastes and delivering vital energy and food security.

This July in Birmingham, the UK AD & Biogas and World Biogas Expo 2017 will bring the global community together, including meetings of the members of the Global Methane Initiative and World Biogas Association, to look at the potential of the industry, the research that could deliver the step change needed to make biogas cheaper than coal at a scale bigger than nuclear, the global market opportunities, the latest improvements in operational performance and biomethane production and use in heating and transport.

With global recognition of the technology’s potential gaining ground, the conference’s excellent programmes include keynote speaker Marc Sadler, Adviser on Risk and Markets in Agriculture at the World Bank, looking at the role that biogas can play in supporting agriculture. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change will outline where AD is needed to help the Government meet the 5th carbon budget and former Secretary of State Chris Huhne and Greenpeace’s Doug Parr among others will look at the impact of Brexit following the triggering of Article 50.

With over 57 hours of content across the conference, two seminar rooms, and the Research and Innovation Hub, alongside the http://bit.ly/2oqDoKT 250+ AD exhibitors, the co-located BioBased Innovations and Waste Water & Sewage Treatment Expos, The AD and Biogas Industry Awards, workshops, http://bit.ly/2nHSO06 3 AD plant site visits and much more besides, this event is now truly the hub of the global biogas community. We look forward to seeing you there.

For more information and to register, please visit adbioresources.org/biogastradeshow For sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, please contact Tori Abiola on +44 (0)203 176 4414 or tori.abiola@adbioresources.org

4,000+

250+

50+

50+

100+

£1trn

Attendees

Countries

Speakers

Exhibitors

Hours of Content

Industry

“A fantastic opportunity for us to promote our business in a growing UK market that has interest and attendance from all over the globe.”

Andrew Simms, Marketing Executive, Morris Lubricants

adbioresources.org ANAEROBIC DIGESTION AND BIORESOURCES ASSOCIATION LTD. Canterbury Court, Kennington Park, 1-3 Brixton Road, London SW9 6DE T: (+44) 020 3176 0503 F: (+44) 0844 292 0875 E: enquiries@adbioresources.org W: www.adbioresources.org Follow us on Twitter: @adbioresources

Bioenergy Insight

May/June 2017 • 65

Bioenergy combined heat and power plants Which technology can make your business grow?

Making the right choice – ORC vs. steam cycle

I

n the last ten years a large number of small and medium-sized wood combined heat and power plants between 300kWe and 5,000kWe have been built. Due to optimising, repetition and learning curves the costs of the units have gone down dramatically. In some circumstances a wood-fired CHP with a price of €70/MWh is even economical feasible.

But which technology is the right choice and what really needs your attention when comparing offers?

It can be very difficult to evaluate different offers.

Which different aspects should be evaluated to make the right choice of technology? What is economically interesting?

Many aspects should be taken into account. Aspects such as the differences in electrical efficiency and thermal efficiency, the influence of heat usage, differences in investment costs, availability and maintenance and safety aspects. Comparing an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to a steam cycle-based technology with a cylindrical boiler and a water tube boiler, it becomes clear that a higher net electrical efficiency is obtained by a high pressure water tube steam boiler in combination with an efficient multi stage steam turbine.

Moreover, 20-30% higher net electricity yield is generated than with a comparable installation based on an ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle). This is achieved by a low own electricity consumption and

66 • May/June 2017

water drum. In this type of boiler the shell is filled with water and the flue gasses flow through the flame tubes. Typical pressures are 14 up to 30 bar. HoSt has built in Krāslava, Latvia a 14 bar wood-fired cylindrical boiler integrated with an existing steam turbine and realised a 22 bar woodfired cylindrical boiler in Eindhoven. This proven plant supplies the city with heat.

The last, but not the least technology is the water tube steam boiler, in which the water and steam flows through the pipes and the flue gasses pass around the pipes. The higher pressure of 52 bar and temperature of 450°C gives a higher electrical yield of the turbine.

Boiler efficiency

The plant burns wood chips and produces green electricity as well as heat

a high boiler efficiency. Let’s look deeper into this case.

Different technologies Many aspects need to be taken into account when choosing a certain technology, definitely not to forget all the different circumstances. But first the basics. A wood-fired ORC is a

system in which the flue gasses from the furnace flow into a thermal oil boiler. The thermal oil is heated, mostly to about 300°C and then pumped through the ORC. In the ORC a thermal fluid, instead of water, is evaporated and flows into the turbine which in turns drives the generator.

A cylindrical boiler is a big

Comparing a steam boiler and a thermal oil boiler, the latter gets the short end of the stick.

For the same thermal input the ORC needs twelve percent more fuel compared to the steam boiler. If fuel was free or at almost no costs, then of course there would not have been a problem. But with fuel costs of €16/MWh, meaning €35/tonne wood chips with 50% moisture, the extra wood costs for a 5MWt boiler are no less than €85,000 annually.

Most of the thermal oil boilers have a flue gas temperature of 280°C due to the thermal oil that runs back from the ORC at a temperature of 250°C. To increase the boiler efficiency, a combustion air pre-heater should be installed. This allows the flue

Bioenergy Insight

combined heat and power plants Bioenergy gas temperature to drop to about 230°C. In this situation the boiler efficiency is then still mostly limited to 80%.

On the other hand, the steam boiler with an economiser is fed with water having a temperature of 105°C. Usually the flue gas temperature is between 140 and 170°C. In this case the boiler efficiency can reach up to as much as 90%, depending on the design of the economiser and the sulphur content in the fuel. Thus, a better choice seeing this comparison.

Electrical efficiency To calculate the electrical efficiency — electricity from generator divided by heat input — it is not enough to only look at the efficiency of the ORC or the steam turbine.

Nearly every ORC will convert the heat supplied to the ORC into electricity with efficiency between 17 and 19%.

The steam turbine efficiency is strongly depending on the type of steam turbine, steam pressure and hot water temperatures. The influence on steam pressure, hot water temperature and the scale of the installation are very good to catch in a graph, saying more than a thousand words. Let’s use the following cases: a high pressure boiler with a water tube boiler at 52 bar and 450°C steam and a cylindrical boiler at 30 bar and 330°C. Compared to an ORC the 52 bar boiler is the most efficient technology, followed by the 30 bar boiler.

Besides boiler efficiency and efficiency of the turbine or ORC, the own consumption can have a major influence on the total efficiency. The big difference between an ORC and a steam cycle is the thermal oil pump.

Generally, about ten percent of the produced electricity is consumed by the thermal oil pump that pumps the oil from the boiler to the ORC. This is often forgotten in

Bioenergy Insight

evaluations, but is nonetheless a very important factor.

Also, the electricity consumption of a large air compressor to clean a thermal oil or cylindrical boiler has to be taken into account. For example, the own consumption of an ORC project in Sittard in the Netherlands has a total parasitic power of 300 kWe on a generator output, which is 25% of the production. A best case project in Beetgum, realised by HoSt, with a 5 5MWt water tube boiler and a multistage turbine has an generator output of 1.15 5MWe and an parasitic power of 10% (116KWe). To generate the same amount of electricity the ORC project needs 45% more wood per MWh electricity. It is possible to install an extra water economiser allowing an increase to 90% efficiency.

But in many cases the value of electricity is two to five times higher than the value of heat, concluding that the water tube boiler is much more efficient.

Investments ORC’s, especially smaller units, are generally cheaper.

However, in practice additional costs arise for extra required components. Think of the thermal oil boiler, thermal oils pumps, the thermal oil pipes and the thermal oil safe guarding systems. For example, in a Dutch ORC project even two tanks had to be installed in a basement when the system completely burned down, assuring that the oil will flow automatically in the tanks if and when any future calamities happen.

What about ORC’s on the scale of 1 to 1.5MWe? Compared to a cylindrical boiler with steam turbine both technologies have the same costs per MWe. If we take into account the lower parasitic power usage of the steam boiler plant the price of this technology is fifteen percent lower per MWe. An example, the technology for the 1.6MWe CHP in Eindhoven

costs less than €4,000/kWe including the bag house filters and the nitrogen oxides (NOx) measurements which are required in the Netherlands.

The investment would drop to about €2,500/kWe — excluding grid connection and civil works — in the case of a power increase to 4MWe. HoSt expects that the costs will even further drop to 2,000 €/kWe for 3 and 4MWe projects based on water tube boilers due to repetition and standardisation.

In other words: a very competitive price level.

Availability and maintenance Stops for cleaning purposes have the greatest impact on availability. It is generally known that the more minerals in biomass, such as sodium and potassium, the more often the boiler needs to be cleaned. Although, cylindrical boilers and thermal boilers are equipped with compressed air cleaning systems, still periodically cleaning is required.

Another big impact on availability is poor quality wood, which nonetheless often is being used in many countries. Think of bark, topping, wood with leaves or even wood from composing installations. These types

of poor quality biomass contain more sand and minerals and have a huge impact on availability.

Every system can be built in such a way that it is able to run without operators, but daily checks of course remain. Just like an ORC is able to, water tube boilers and cylindrical boiler CHP’s in the Netherlands also run unattended. How that works?

In a high pressure water tube boiler the pipes are very well cleaned by steam soot blowers, which reach the dirt between the pipes. Stops are limited to one or two stops annually when combusting normal wood and maybe three stops with poor quality wood.

Thermal and cylindrical boilers need mechanical cleaning stops each two months and sometimes even each month.

High boiler and power plants availability is important when evaluating different offers and an availability of more than 96% is absolutely feasible.

It is needless to say that plant and boiler availability depends on supplier design, the type of boiler and, definitely not irrelevantly, the quality of the biomass. l For more information:

This article was written by Herman Klein Teeselink, director at HoSt. Visit: www.host.nl/

May/June 2017 • 67

Bioenergy health and safety Raising awareness over the issue of overheating damage to activated carbon filters

Feeling the heat

A

health and safety incident occurred at one of DMT’s plants recently.

An activated carbon filter overheated due to an incorrect mode of operation, causing damage to the installation. This led to a significant financial loss, including business interruption impacts.

To raise awareness for correct operation of activated carbon filters, DMT published a safety, health and environmental bulletin to help biogas plant operators. Below one can find the outline of the cause, the technical background and recommendations.

What happened?

Biogas upgrading facilities require proper pre-treatment of the biogas in order to remove contaminants such as hydrogen sulphide (H2S). At the affected site, the installation had been successfully operated for many months.

In August 2016, the system was operated for a period of

DMT infographic of its biogas upgrading facility

time with no oxygen present in the biogas stream. The oxygen injection unit of the digester was not in use. This resulted in the biogas stream containing high amounts of H2S and no oxygen present.

The absence of oxygen combined with the high H2S concentration in the

Activated carbon filter

68 • May/June 2017

biogas, quickly saturated the activated carbon. Usually this would not be a problem when the biogas stream was transferred by a timer to the redundant fresh active carbon filter and the saturated carbon filter was replaced.

However, it appeared that both filters were saturated which resulted in several automatic shut downs due to the critical H2S level alarm after the filters.

The operators incorrectly made several attempts to regenerate the saturated carbon by feeding air directly into the inlet of the filter, by connecting an external air compressor pump.

The compressed air was injected into the filters, while the biogas stream was not present. The overload of oxygen and the absence of any cooling effect of the biogas stream resulted in overheating by an exothermal

chemical reaction (hotspots) with a meltdown of the filter as a result.

Technical explanation Under normal operation conditions with the correct biogas specification, the hydrogen sulphide in the biogas reacts with oxygen and the potassium hydroxide in the activated carbon: H2S + ½ O2 -> S + H2O H2S + KOH -> KSH + H2O A small amount of oxygen reacts with the formed sulphur and water to sulphuric acid, which is an exothermal reaction which will be cooled down by the biogas stream.

2S + 2H2O + 3O2 -> 2H2SO4 If oxygen concentrations exceed the specified limits, the exothermal reaction

Bioenergy Insight

AxiaseTM 100

H2S saturated activated carbon filters can cause dangerous overheating becomes uncontrollable which gives rise to a potentially dangerous situation.

Operation with low or no oxygen in the biogas Operation with too low or no oxygen will cause a delayed chemical reaction between H2S and the oxygen. H2S will accumulate within the activated carbon which can form dangerous clusters. If a cluster of H2S accumulation — after the faulty operation — is exposed with the normal amount of oxygen a clustered exothermal reaction can create hot-spots which can lead to an overheating or meltdown of the filter.

Built-in DMT safety measurements For determining the H2S saturation level of the activated carbon, the DMT installations measure the H2S level in the biogas after the filters. If this level exceeds more than 10ppm the installation, a critical alarm is generated and the system shuts down. If this repeatedly happens in a short time, the activated carbon in the active filter is saturated and should be replaced. To prevent process interruptions the system is provided with two filters which can be run parallel.

One filter is active in the gas stream. By changing the gas stream to the fresh active carbon filter, the saturated carbon filter can be replaced without process interruption.

desulphurisation/regeneration process is present in the activated carbon filters.

The released oxygen level/ concentration in the biogasstream towards the filters is between 0.1 and 0.5%.

The optimum concentration of oxygen depends on the pollution of H2S in the biogas.

It is also recommended not to run the active carbon filters simultaneously. Under normal circumstances, this will not cause any problems but for continuous production reasons it is prudent to alternate the filters and replace the contents of the saturated filter.

Bioenergy Insight

for more WCCS in your biogas plant

Warnings Activated carbon can create hot-spots or massive heatup if the plant is started up after a long period with use of oxygen injection in larger amounts than specified. If there is a biogas stream present it will have a cooling effect, but it can also create dangerous situations.

H2S saturated activated carbon filters can cause dangerous overheating if the operator tries to regenerate the carbon with oxygen.

Saturated activated carbon can only be regenerated by a skilled employee or a specialised supplier.

In any circumstances: Never regenerate the carbon on-site. For safe operation, saturated carbon should be replaced on time. l

Axiase™ 100 the enzyme preparation for: • maximized usage of cereal based fiber substrates in your substrate mix (replace maize silage) • increased flexibility in substrate management • lower viscosity in the digester • more stable biogas production without AxiaseTM 100

Corn silage input weight (%) WCCS input weight (%) (based on organic dry matter)

with AxiaseTM 100

Installation capacity (%) Biogas yield (m3/ton oDM) Energy use (%)

www.dsmbiogas.com www.omex.co.uk/industry

Recommendations It is recommended to have an automatically controlled air/oxygen injection unit to ensure the proper amount of oxygen for the

The enzyme kick

For more information:

This article was written by Pieter Durk van Jaarsveld , process manager at DMT Environmental Technology. Visit: www.dmt-et.com

Bioenergy biomass generation

Biomass to power Far and wide: Efficient, flexible biomass for the next generation

I

t is not just people who sometimes struggle to combine intensive and extensive behaviours.

Biomass generators have often failed to address both of these challenges simultaneously. Boasting the capability to process a wide range of feedstocks whilst also operating on high efficiency levels is the ideal scenario for biomass generators — but it remains an aspiration for many in the industry.

HRS Energy, however, is taking major strides to make this a reality.

The challenge

The experience of most of those seeking to generate renewable energy from biomass is that the feedstock that arrives at the warehouse door comes in many shapes and sizes. This is especially true of generators running sustainably on waste wood and forestry trimmings, rather than standardised (and frequently imported) pellets. Whilst shape and size is itself rarely a problem, with ever more shredding and processing tools available, what is more challenging is when materials arrive with varying levels of moisture content.

High moisture content in feedstock can inhibit combustion in biomass boilers and cause the furnace temperature to decrease.

This lower temperature, in turn, slows combustion, further decreasing the furnace temperature and causing yet more delay. This downward spiral can eventually lead to a boiler ceasing to function unless the biomass moisture content is reduced or the auxiliary fuel flow rate in the boiler is increased to keep the furnace temperature high.

As such, running plants that

70 • May/June 2017

can process a wide range of feedstock, including those with high moisture content, often comes at the cost of efficiency — and therefore environmental performance and profitability. Many generators will therefore simply avoid high-moisture, hard to process feedstocks entirely — consigning them to landfill or leaving them to rot in the open air.

Combining technologies to drive flexibility through efficiency

HRS Energy’s Advanced Biomass Power Generator (ABPG) tackles this challenge head on. The ABPG is a full-service power plant, combining several HRS patented world-leading designs to create the most efficient biomass generation available on the market — with the lowest cost per megawatt of any comparable facility. This efficiency performance is so profound that it effectively tackles the downward spiral described above, and means that the ABPG can handle feedstocks with a moisture content of up to 65%.

HRS uses a ‘STABB’ fluid bed in its combustion system - a simple, low cost design, offering multi-fuel capability with unbeatable reliability, efficiency and clean combustion. The fluid bed is comprised of finely sieved sand, limestone or ash, which is fluidised by

a stream of high pressure air.

The behaviour of the bed is similar to that of a boiling liquid, with vigorous movement and mixing. Air, fuel and hot bed material mix, intimately creating rapid heat transfer and efficient combustion, and therefore high levels of efficiency and low emissions.

With this technology the ABPG can convert a wide range of biomass products and waste into useful heat and power.

Doing so with high economy is the next challenge.

HRS stands for Heat Recovery Solutions, and this is where the company originally made its name. Though the fluidised bed generators are already some of the best in the industry, what makes the technology go further still — and provides truly revolutionary potential for the energy sector — is the size, weight, flexibility, and efficiency performance of the bespoke waste heat modules which capture and reuse the energy created in the combustion process.

The circular steam generators and waste heat recovery units use less steel than competitors and are highly engineered and configured to be lighter, cheaper, quieter, and more efficient than any comparable technology.

Moreover, both the fluid bed generator and heat recovery boiler incorporate a “bi-

efficiency” radiant furnace that is unique within the industry — with an advanced condensing economiser further improving overall efficiency by around 6%.

Overall, the APBG runs at a cycle efficiency of between 30-90% (depending on the heat to power ratio).This efficiency, brought about by the combination of these proven technologies working in tandem, means that ever more feedstock becomes ‘fair game’ for the ABPG - opening up new markets where generating renewable energy using biomass has not previously been possible.

This includes some of the wetter parts of the UK (and beyond), where forestry and waste wood residues had previously been considered too damp — effectively wasting this resource.

The Advanced Biomass Power Generator in action The first operational Advanced Biomass Power Generator can be found near Tansterne in East Yorkshire, UK, having been constructed in just more than 15 months. This is in itself remarkable for a plant of its size (21MW) — and owes to the modular design of the facility.

With significant orders being negotiated in countries such as the US and Mexico, and other sites being planned elsewhere in the UK, Tansterne will be a vanguard for a new generation of hyper-efficient biomass plants globally.

In so doing, HRS is answering a question posed by many bioenergy executives. It is through pursuing greater efficiency that the capacity for flexibility is created. l

For more information: Computer generated image of the advanced biomass power generator at Tansterne

This article was written by Mark Wickham, managing director at HRS Energy. Visit: www.hrs.energy

Bioenergy Insight

xxxxxx Bioenergy

Stef Christo, farmer,

“We deliver greengas for 1400 households, instead of paying for our waste”

Why not make money out of crops waste ánd make a tribute to the environment? DMT makes it possible.

Our technology enables biogas to be upgraded to pure methane. This methane can be distributed through the grid for numerous households.

Can you imagine what biogas upgrading can do for your business? With 30 years world wide experience we are a reliable partner.

Why not call our office and find out what we can do for you?

We value your waste DMT Environmental Technology

www.dmt-et.com

EU call +31 513 636 789 Coen Meijers or e-mail: cmeijers@dmt-et.nl USA call +1 503 379 0147 Robert Lems or e-mail: rlems@dmt-cgs.com Bioenergy Insight

May/June 2017 • 71

Bioenergy event preview On 12-15 June, the European Biomass Conference and Exhibition celebrates its 25th edition in Stockholm, welcoming the global biomass community. EUBCE has been held at different venues in Europe since 1980

EUBCE 2017: The indispensable role of biomass

O

n 12-15 June, the European Biomass Conference and Exhibition celebrates its 25th edition in Stockholm, welcoming the global biomass community. EUBCE has been held at different venues in Europe since 1980 At this year’s upcoming European Biomass Conference and Exhibition (EUBCE) in Stockholm more than 1,000 presentations will address the latest technologies, policy framework and medium and long-term strategies and potentials.

More than 3,700 authors and co-authors from 80 countries around the world were involved in preparing

72 • May/June 2017

abstracts for contributions for the EUBCE in 2016. A total of 780 keynote, plenary, oral and visual presentations were held during the event.

The 2017 programme outline continues the successful format from previous years. The EUBCE provides a unique platform to present new R&D results and analysis, while also encouraging active participation of industry experts, analysts, media and policy makers.

Conference general chair, president of Södra Skogsägarna and chairperson of the Board of the Forest-based Sector Technology Platform, Lena Ek, said: “Bioeconomy

provides opportunities and solutions for some of our global challenges as formulated in United Nations new sustainable development goals (SDGs).

“The SDGs builds on economic development, social responsibility and environmental considerations.

The EUBCE provides a cross-border platform for contacts, knowledge, discussion and solutions.”

Conference general cochair, chairman of the Boards of Pöyry and chairman of the Climate Leadership Council, Henrik Ehrnrooth, said: “Biomass is the starting point for industrial renewal: recarbonising materials, decarbonising energy is the

recipe. This is what EUBCE admirably presents.”

Scientific findings

EUBCE Technical Programme chairman and scientific and technical officer at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, Nicolae Scarlat, said: “The conference will provide a science-toscience and science-to-industry platform for knowledge exchange to discuss the latest scientific findings, industrial progress and policy landscape through keynote and plenary presentations and specialised thematic sessions.”

The conference opening session will discuss ‘The indispensable role of biomass’

Bioenergy Insight

event preview Bioenergy as part of the long-term goal agreed in Paris of limiting the increase of global average temperature and bioenergy in the wider bio-economy.

Biomass potential and bioenergy policy targets for 2030 will also be part of the debate as well.

Major hurdles The plenary sessions will address major challenges that the biomass community is facing today such as the debate on the perspectives and approaches for bioenergy, the production and utilisation of biofuels and different potential biomass feedstocks, including the organic fraction of municipal waste, the recent findings in the field of thermochemical biomass conversion technologies as well as the challenges and opportunities of establishing bioconversion processes for the bio-based economy. Key approaches for the integration of bioenergy technologies implemented in a flexible

Biomass potential and bioenergy policies targets for 2030 and beyond will be part of the debate manner to provide energy output on demand as well as the latest developments of large-scale industrial plants processing biomass residues and wastes to biofuels and bioenergy will be discussed.

The conference programme is complemented with parallel events that present additional contributions. They offer a deep insight into specific topics along the most recent technology, market and business trends such as solid biomass, advanced biofuels and bio-based chemicals.

EUBCE exhibition The EUBCE exhibition, running for four days and parallel to the conference, will attract more than 50 companies and will be the place to promote the transfer of knowledge and

expertise among research, industry and policy makers and to identify and enable smart solutions for the fundamental challenges posed by the bioenergy industry.

Admission to the exhibition is free for EUBCE delegates and open for visitors as well.

EUBCE background For more than 30 years, the EUBCE has been serving as the annual meeting point for biomass experts from research, development and the industry. With presentations addressing the latest technologies, the policy framework, and the medium and long-term strategies and potentials, the EUBCE is the interface between science, industry and policy makers.

The EUBCE programme is

supported by the Scientific and Industry Committee comprising 140 international biomass experts.

The EUBCE is supported by European and international organisations such as the European Commission, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Natural Sciences Sector, the European Biomass Industry Association (EUBIA), the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), Central European Initiative (CEI), Global Bioenergy Partnerships (GPEB), FNR, the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Global Challenge Global Utmaning, SVEBIO, the World Biomass Association and other organisations.

The EUBCE conference programme is coordinated by the European Commission Joint Research Centre. l For more information: Visit: www.eubce.com

The next European Biomass Conference and Exhibition will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, from 12-15 June

Bioenergy Insight

May/June 2017 â&#x20AC;˘ 73

Bioenergy biomass boilers One US-based college is benefiting from a new biomass boiler

Learning curve

I

tasca Community College (ICC) was founded in 1922 as a public college.

It serves 1,200 students with 40 full-time faculty.

The average class size is 24 students. The main focus is in natural resources, pulp and paper, geographic information systems and power generation, to name a few.

One of the main things that the college focuses on is utilising sustainable sources for energy. Academic programmes at ICC, such as the Natural Resource programme, the Engineering programme and the Power Generation programme have worked to develop a biomass project. The use of forest residue as a heating fuel has a great potential to provide a renewable, clean source of energy while investing in rural economies. Itasca wanted to use a sustainable sources of energy.

Itasca’s campus covers nearly 12 acres and has almost 240,000 square feet of building space. In many ways, the college functions like a small community. The biomass project will serve as a showcase for the use of renewable energy for a

Itasca Community College

74 • May/June 2017

renewables by the year 2020.

That standard was also a driving force for the project.

Staying local

Chip bin travelling auger

town’s heating needs. And educational opportunities for students are an added benefit, as the college has existing forestry and power generation programmes.

This biomass heating project replaced the outdated wood-fuelled boiler that needed continuous monitoring and maintenance, with a “state-of-the-art” biomass boiler system. The project was completed in December of 2016.

ICC went from an outdated biomass boiler, installed in

the 1970’s and natural gas boiler for heating, to a brand new biomass boiler that would supply about 90% of the heat energy requirements.

The existing natural gas boiler would be retained, to provide additional heat during peak capacity and potential warm weather heat when the turndown limit (4 to 1) of the biomass boiler is reached. This new efficient biomass boiler system goes nicely with the state of Minnesota’s renewable portfolio standard of 20%

One common characteristic that most biomass fuels share is that they are derived from the waste stream and residuals of other local industries. Materials are often sourced from by-products of lumber mills, furniture producers, or logging sites.

Use of these by-products can create the dual effect of providing revenue to these industries while also securing a renewable source of fuel for thermal energy needs. It has been noted that when natural gas is burned, around 95 cents of every dollar leaves the state. When using biomass, those dollars stay local, supporting local businesses and local families. Biomass fuel touches transporters, loggers, mill operators, vendors and others. Most of these are located less than 200 miles away from the biomass heating system.

The old biomass boiler required a very precise quality chip. Some would call it “pharmaceutical grade” or

Wood chip bunker access

Bioenergy Insight

biomass boilers Bioenergy

Metering bin assembly and stoker auger

“paper grade”. This type of chip has been screened for size and debarked to reduce ash content once it has been burned. These factors lead to a chip that is really expensive compared to chips that are processed less or not at all.

The new boiler has the ability to burn chips that have been

Combustor and hot water boiler

processed, to chips that have had no processing at all.

Speaking about the project, project manager Bart Johnson said: “Once the new boiler is installed, biomass will become the primary heating source on campus. While natural gas is still cheap — and we have a pipeline that runs through our

Deadline:

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campus so we couldn’t possibly be any closer — taking biomass directly from the woods will still allow us to heat our campus more effectively.”

Savings for the boiler have been projected as it hasn’t been up and running for a full heating season yet.

The projected total cost

savings versus natural gas are $331,000. The amount of annual fuel purchase into the local economy is projected to be around $15,000. l For more information:

This article was written by Shannon Roy Black, sales and marketing manager at Messersmith Manufacturing.

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May/June 2017 • 75

Bioenergy biomass boilers A UK-based company has come up with something completely new — a system that helps turn “wet steam” into energy

Full steam ahead

By Liz Gyekye

S

cottish manufacturer Heliex Power has solved an energy problem that has stumped academic and engineering minds for centuries by devising an efficient way of harnessing the power of “wet” steam.

A team of engineers has developed patented technology to recover energy from a ubiquitous yet frequently untapped energy source — the type of vapour you can see when a kettle boils. Produced at low temperatures and low pressure, wet steam has to date been lost as waste heat in millions of factories across the globe because its moisture content caused irreparable damage to turbines.

Village Nursery is a family business that supplies salad to some of the UK’s largest supermarkets including Waitrose and Aldi

Developed in conjunction with researchers at City University, London, Heliex’s technology uses screw compressors,

working in reverse, to recapture lost energy and generate electricity in an economically viable way.

The company recently received a £4.2 million (€5.02m) funding injection, taking the total investment to date to £16 million, helping it exploit the new untapped market worth billions worldwide.

‘The Holy Grail’

Heliex Power CEO Chris Armitage

76 • May/June 2017

Dan Wright MBE, founder of Heliex Power, says: “It’s the Holy Grail of energy recovery for manufacturers and it’s hugely environmentally friendly. The wet steam conundrum has been an enduring problem in the industry for many years and we have 100% proven that our answer to it works, with massive cost and energy savings. When we show engineers what we’ve achieved they say: ‘At last!

Someone’s finally done it.’”

More than 40,000GWh of

energy is lost globally every year through waste steam and it’s estimated that up to 50% of industrial energy usage is eventually released as waste heat — enough to power 28 billion homes. The potential market for the system is in excess of £70 billion.

Steam has traditionally been used to create power, and even to this day it remains an important part of the energy mix. However, the technology traditionally used to harness the power from steam only works effectively with superheated steam — that’s steam in a higher temperature range than wet steam, which typically costs more to produce.

Biomass power The Heliex system is already been used in the biomass industry. In fact, the integration of a Heliex GenSet into an existing biomass boiler installation has provided a cost-effective and reliable combined heat and power (CHP) solution for a nursery called Village Nursery in Essex, UK. According to Heliex, Village Nursery is a family business that supplies salad to some of the UK’s largest supermarkets including Waitrose and Aldi.

London-based financial advisor and equipment owner AMP fully financed the project that, thanks to lower energy bills, will help Villa Nursery increase productivity and reduce costs, resulting in greater levels of investment and increased numbers of new jobs for local people.

Bioenergy Insight

Energy was a major cost for the nursery, which has more than 15 acres of peppers under glass. An Energy Supply Company (ESCO) arrangement with AMP allows the nursery to buy back the low-cost energy generated by the newly installed biomass CHP plant with no need for initial investment or ongoing maintenance costs.

Project partner, Wood Energy, installed a 1.65MW wood chip fuelled biomass boiler plus Heliex HP 145 GenSet. The residual heat is used to warm the greenhouses and the electricity is used on site for lighting etc.

The low-cost heat is eligible for incentives through the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme and the electricity is eligible for Renewable Obligations Certificates (ROC’s). 8 million kW and 220 days of heat will be generated annually by the biomass CHP plant.

Background Speaking to Bioenergy Insight about the innovation, CEO of Heliex Power, Chris Armitage says: “We still get technical support from City University.

The technology is based around well-established air compressor technology. It fits nicely with the biomass industry. We put steam in one end of our expander

and we get steam at the other end. We generate electricity from steam and at the same time there is a residual heat output. Heat output is quite available to be used in other processes.

So, we expect the biomass industry to use the energy from its biomass boilers.”

Giving an explanation of how the process works, Armitage says: “The biomass boiler will produce steam from the top of it. This steam then passes down a pipe from the biomass boiler to our expander. We take this at 40/bar. The steam will then come out of our expander just above atmospheric pressure.

This depends on what temperature is required. This is used to heat any processes that remain downstream.

This includes heating for greenhouses used to house vegetables like tomatoes or something similar.”

Armitage says that his business is growing. He maintains that the company is expanding in Europe and seeing strong growth in Italy. More than 50% of the company’s technology is sold to the biomass industry.

All in all, he says: “Payback is around three years, but can be quicker than that.

It depends on the specifics of the scheme. The returns available from generating electricity are very good.” l

Village Nursery installed a 1.65MW wood chip fuelled biomass boiler and Heliex HP 145 GenSet

Bioenergy Insight

May/June 2017 • 77

Bioenergy opinion An analysis of a controversial study

‘Alternative facts’ in the recent Chatham House paper

P

roviding misleading, inaccurate, and sometime outright fiction as facts could be called propaganda. With overtones of Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the term “alternative facts” has recently been coined. Either way, it is information that is biased and misleading that is used to promote a point of view. We have written critiques of other papers, by among others, the World Resources Institute and Climate Central, for writing biased, incomplete, and misleading publications that use alternative facts to promote an agenda that opposes a strategy that we have coined as a rational and pragmatic off-ramp to a decarbonised future.

Now we add the Chatham House paper to the list. The recently released paper by the Chatham House is a study that contains many inaccurate statements about the use of wood for energy. Those statements are presented as facts or as uncontested conclusions.

This article will focus on the study’s discussions that pertain to the sourcing of raw materials for industrial wood pellets. We are not sure if the study’s author is naive about how the forest products industry operates or is purposefully presenting “alternative” facts. In either case, the result is a study that is one-sided and wrong in its conclusions.

The Renewable Energy Association (REA) of the UK has posted a critique of some

78 • May/June 2017

William Strauss, president of FutureMetrics

of the inaccuracies in the Chatham House study. This brief article will focus on the discussions which form much of the foundation for the study’s conclusions as to why using wood for energy is bad. Throughout the study there is frequent reference to what the study claims is an important distinction regarding how trees are used after harvest. From their point of view, making lumber is okay, but using the wood to produce wood pellets for energy is not. The study also frequently states that the harvest of trees cuts short their ability to continue sequestering carbon.

The following quote from the Chatham House paper embodies both of those concepts. The quote is part of paragraph in which the study is countering the logic in a paper published by William Strauss in 2011.

“This argument implies that, once they have grown, what happens to trees later — whether they are left to grow further, or

harvested and made into wood products, or harvested and burnt for energy — somehow makes no difference to carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. This is obviously not the case.”

That quote, which captures a logic presented in many other places in the Chatham House paper, presents a premise that is false and an “obvious” conclusion that is wrong. The rest of this paper will explain why we disagree with how the study has set up a dichotomy that does not represent reality in order to justify inaccurate conclusions about the carbon impacts of using wood for energy.

Raw materials At the heart of the matter, it appears that the study does not understand how the forest products industry operates. In the US and Canada and many other countries, there are vast “working” forests whose purpose is to produce the raw materials for many industries.

Those forests are valued assets to the landowners (tree farmers) and the buyers.

Sawmills, pulp mills, and many other wood products mills, including pellet mills, depend on a continuous daily input of wood to produce products that are used in one way or another by just about everyone every day.

To enable and ensure a continuous supply of raw material, the quantity of the logs and chips coming into the mills cannot exceed the growth rate of the surrounding managed forest otherwise the

mills, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would have to close once they depleted the resource they depend on to operate.

Sawmills, pulp mills, and pellet mills are sized to match the ability of the surrounding working forest to supply affordable wood every day for decades. Sawmill, pulp mill, and pellet mill business models require good forestry practices that yield a sustainable outcome. But beyond that, particularly for industrial wood pellets being exported from the US and Canada into the UK and other nations, there are rigorous certification schemes that demand auditing to prove that the forests are not being depleted and that the stock of carbon held in the forests is not being reduced.

The millions of hectares of working forests in North America that supply the forest products industries are like the millions of hectares of cropland in North America. The stewards of those lands are growing plants that are used for food and industry. Trees in these managed forests have much larger stems and take longer to grow than corn, wheat, sugarcane, or soybeans but they are nonetheless a crop.

The trees, whether grown on large plantations in the southeastern US or in the immense managed hardwood and softwood stands in the northern states and Canada, are being grown to be harvested. These forests are dynamic systems that are in many stages of growth.

There are mature trees that

Bioenergy Insight

opinion Bioenergy are ready to harvest, areas of new growth, and many plots that are in stages of growth between seedlings and mature trees. The purpose of tree farming is to supply wood fibre and its many by-products to industry. The privately-owned forests in the US, which make up about 60% of all US forestland, most of which are managed to continuously produce the raw materials for making lumber, paper, pellets, and other products derived from wood, also hold billions of tonnes of carbon.

The landowners of those private forests and the workers that manage and harvest trees get paid for growing and producing wood fibre, not for sequestering

carbon. However, the inherent forest products industries. sustainability of the resource Contrary to the either-or that accrues from good forest implications by the Chatham management practices means House study regarding that the aggregate carbon harvesting trees versus carbon stock held in private forests sequestration, a steady supply are not being depleted. of raw materials for the forest Quite the contrary. The products industries, including first chart below shows the pellet production, does not annual carbon sequestered mean reducing carbon stocks. in US forests. The larger the But what if the negative number, the more landowners stopped tree carbon that is being captured harvesting altogether? in US forests. US forest carbon Would the Chatham House sequestration has increased counterfactual be true? by 13.6% over the past 25 Would carbon stocks grow? years. The second chart shows First, the private owners of the total carbon held in US working forests are farmers privately-owned forests by that depend on the forest state and the percentage of products industries for US forests that are privately income. As long as there is owned. Most privatelya demand for lumber, paper, owned forests are working chemicals FutureMetrics LLC derived from wood FutureMetrics LLC forests growing trees for 8the fibre, and other end products 8 Airport Road Airport Road Bethel, ME04217, 04217,USA USA Bethel, ME

Carbon Absorbed Annually USForests Forests Carbon Absorbed Annually bybyUS

Millions of Metric Tons of CO2 Equivalents

Millions of Metric Tons of CO2 Equivalents

0

-200

-400

-600

-800

0

-200

-400

-600

-800

-1000 -1000

A 13.6% Increase in Carbon Sequestration Rate A 13.6% Increase in Carbon Sequestration Rate

-1200 -1200

source: US EPA Report on the Environment, www.epa.gov/roe ; Analysis by FutureMetrics source: US EPA Report on the Environment, www.epa.gov/roe ; Analysis by FutureMetrics

Stock of Carbon in Private (mostly working) US Forests (excludes forest and other public forest) Stock of Carbon inNational Private (mostly working) US Forests in millions metric tonnes (excludes National forestofand other public forest) in millions of metric tonnes

2,000

2,000

1,800

1,800 1,600 1,600 1,400 1,400 1,200

Private 59% Private 59%

1,200 1,000 1,000 800

National Forest National 24% Forest 24%

800 600

made from wood, forests will be grown to be harvested.

Second, sustainable tree farming, i.e., continuously renewing forests, does not degrade the carbon sink function of working forests.

Elsewhere, there is certainly a place for independent and critical oversight of the industrial wood pellet sector. There are some areas of the world where industrial wood pellets are produced from questionable feedstocks. There are some end users of industrial wood pellets that are less than rigorous in certifying the credentials of the producers.

But the US and Canada are not one of those places in the world, and the UK’s end users do engage in rigorous certification (as do those in most other jurisdictions).

The Chatham House study is misguided in its focus. Finally, the forest products industry is evolving. As the demand for paper for printing declines, the opportunity for pellet mills to use the raw materials that would have otherwise gone to pulp and paper mills that produced print media increases. In just one US state, Maine, there have been six pulp mill closures in the past two and a half years.

Those pulp mills used more than two million tonnes per year of biomass that could be made into pellets. The pellet industry will replace much of what is being lost.

That is an alternative future that does not depend on alternative facts. l

Other Public Other 17% Public 17%

600 400 400 200

0

0

Texas Georgia Michigan Texas MaineGeorgia Michigan Wisconsin New York Maine Wisconsin North Carolina New York Alabama North Carolina Oregon Alabama California Oregon Washington California Pennsylvania Washington Virginia Pennsylvania Mississippi Virginia South Carolina Mississippi Florida South Carolina West Virginia Florida Arkansas West Virginia Minnesota Arkansas Missouri Minnesota Tennessee Missouri Louisiana Tennessee Kentucky Louisiana Ohio Kentucky Oklahoma Ohio Montana Oklahoma Montana Vermont Vermont New Mexico New Mexico New Hampshire New Hampshire Indiana IllinoisIndiana Colorado Illinois Colorado Arizona IdahoArizona Massachusetts Idaho Massachusetts Alaska Kansas Alaska Kansas Iowa Iowa Maryland Maryland Utah Utah Connecticut Connecticut Nebraska Nebraska New Jersey New Jersey Wyoming Wyoming South Dakota South Dakota North Dakota North Dakota Delaware Delaware Rhode Island Rhode Island NevadaNevada

200

source: Forest Inventory Data Online (FIDO), US Forest Service, July, 2013, Analysis by FutureMetrics

source: Forest Inventory Data Online (FIDO), US Forest Service, July, 2013, Analysis by FutureMetrics

Bioenergy Insight

FutureMetrics – Intelligent Analysis and Strategic Leadership for the Pellet Sector

FutureMetrics – Intelligent Analysis and Strategic Leadership for the Pellet Sector

Page 4

Page 4

For more information:

This article was written by William Strauss, president of FutureMetrics.

Visit: www.futuremetrics.info

May/June 2017 • 79

Bioenergy policy update A look at biomass policy in Belgium

Biomass in Belgium

O

n 20 April, the bankruptcy of ‘Langerlo’ — a 400MW coal unit poised to be converted into a pelletfired power plant — was announced, a few weeks after it became clear that it would not be granted the promised €2 billion of subsidies it needed.

Back in March 2016, there was a 850MW pipeline of new biomass projects. One year later, in short, the situation can be summarised as follows: • In Flanders, the government cancelled €3.9 billion of support to two largescale biomass projects: Langerlo (see above) and BEE Ghent (230MW).

This news followed the resignation of the former energy minister due to the rising cost of electricity • In Wallonia, an annual support of €67m is considered for a single biomass power plant and a call for tenders is ongoing. The government initially expected a 200MW capacity but analysts doubt it can exceed the 120-150MW range Hence, in these troubled times for biomass project developers, the recent debates in Belgium gives one the opportunity to cover the strengths and weaknesses of biomass for power generation.

Doubts about the sustainability of biomass Nowadays, contribution to European renewable energy sources (RES) targets are the raison d’être of biomass projects in Belgium. Hence, criticism of the sustainability

80 • May/June 2017

of biomass by environmental groups is a major handicap as it weakens the core reason why policymakers are keen to support it.

Such a debate goes well beyond the scope of this review. Let’s just stress the fact that, in Belgium, subsidies are made conditional to sustainability certification and that new rules of the European Commission’s Winter Package will strengthen the criteria. Yet, in people’s minds, international NGOs such as Greenpeace or the WWF also count as moral certification bodies.

Despite the controversy, the ‘green’ argument can also play in favour of biomass. Hence, whereas the installation of PV panels are subject to households’ goodwill (and financing means) and local protests often jeopardise onshore wind projects, the guarantee of putting online, at once, several dozens of megawatts of RES capacity is undeniably valuable.

Security of supply Another main advantage of biopower is its dispatchable nature. Compared to the intermittent solar panels and wind turbines, it can be more easily inserted into the energy mix. On the other hand, the Belgian situation (large nuclear base load) pushes policymakers to mainly consider gas-fired power plants as a complement to intermittent sources.

Moreover, the variable costs of a biomass power plant represent more than 80% of the total costs. A legitimate fear of public authorities is that these units shall stop producing

after the subsidy period if market conditions are not favourable. This partially explains why subsidies in Wallonia would be granted over 20 years compared to 10 years in the initial plans for Langerlo (Flanders).

Cheap and cheerful?

Past subsidy schemes have been fiercely criticised and this has had a long lasting effect on public support for renewable technologies.

Needless to say, the large scale of biomass power plants leads to significant amounts of public subsidies that are analysed with scrutiny (Langerlo used to make the headlines with its “2 billion Euros of subsidies”).

Favoured until recently by its lower costs, biopower now faces the dynamics of dropping costs for solar and wind. Policymakers are aware of it and, as an energy minister put it: “biomass is not even the cheapest renewable energy”.

But being the cheapest is not everything. In these times of tight government budgets and price-sensitive energy consumers, cash flows also matter. For instance, public support to PV panels currently (although maybe not for long) amounts to €133/MWh in Wallonia in the first years, compared to €50-60/MWh for biomass.

In the coming months, two trends will be worth watching closely. First, will Belgian public authorities manage to (re-)negotiate better prices for the wind offshore concessions in the North Sea? These could drop from €124/MWh (total guaranteed price) to €73/MWh. Second, how will households and

companies react to dropping costs? Flanders has already decided to stop subsidising small (>10kW) installations and a Sia Partners study showed that the investment was still profitable.

Conclusion

By July, the winning offer in Wallonia should be known and we should see clearer which way the balance is tipping. Building on this experience, it will be time to assess the industry’s strategy for future projects.

Biomass lobbyists have so far consistently stressed the system benefits of biomass power plants. This aspect now deems to be further supported by the characteristics of the proposed projects. In the short term, it is most probably not the time for large-scale (i.e. > 200 MW) biomass projects in Belgium given the lack of coal power plants to be converted and citizens’ sensitivity to large amounts of subsidies.

However, project developers have a window of opportunity to show how their plans can fit the local environment with a reduced size. First, by securing Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) with local clients for which such supply represents economic and social advantages. Second, by demonstrating that they are rooted in the local environment by means of cogeneration. In Belgium and in other countries, there is a growing demand for these local, integrated solutions. l For more information :

This article was written by Alexandre Viviers, senior consultant at Sia Partners. Visit: www.sia-partners.com

Bioenergy Insight

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