Biogas This is the approach that has been adopted by the new Beerfelde project with a diverse assortment of input materials planned – from maize silage, whole crop silage, szarvasi grass, and grass silage to cattle dung, cattle slurry, horse dung and dried chicken dung. – More and more, we see that flexibility in possible substrate combinations is a deciding factor in proposals. Operators know that this is their best chance of keeping costs under control in a changing market. Our constant advancements Bioenergy International No 81, 5-2015 25 German biogas technology supplier Agraferm Technologies AG has announced it has successfully bid for the turnkey installation of a new large-scale biomethane to grid project in Germany. Located in Beerfelde/Goelsdorf, equidistant between Berlin and Frankfurt am Oder, the contract is for the turnkey construction of a 700 Nm³ per hour large-scale biomethane facility complete with biogas cleaning, upgrading and grid injection. The contractor is NEVAG, a company that already operates an Agraferm plant in Petershagen. According to a statement the project developer, RegPower GmbH, has been working on location and planning for over two years since new political guidelines as well as the use of more agricultural waste have arisen. The 6 million US based VIASPACE Inc., a developer and grower of its proprietary Giant King Grass, has announced completion of engineering and design work for a turnkey 2 MW biogas power plant in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for US based independent power producer (IPP), Clean Energy Solutions Pacific (CES). Focused on developing power for frontier and emerging markets the CES PNG project is an “own and operate” biogas power plant and Giant King Grass plantation under a power purchase agreement from the government electricity company. – Our biogas power plant will provide badly needed base load power for a remote area in Papua New Guinea. It is a clean and renewable alternative to oil-based electricity, and the power plant and Giant King Grass plantation provide needed jobs, said McCabe Cox, CEO for Clean Energy Solutions Pacific in a statement. BI81/4958/AS Nm³ per annum biomethane plant is scheduled for commissioning in the first quarter of 2016. Although the value of the project has not been disclosed the order highlights that there is still potential for biogas plants in the German market, but plant concepts must be particularly well thought out and future-compliant. An especially important detail is input material flexibility. – In future, biogas plants must be as flexible as possible allowing for diverse substrates and various modes of operation. Plant manufacturers with the right technology will have better chances on the market, commented Cornelius Herb, CEO of RegPower GmbH. The emerging trend is moving away from dedicated energy crops towards “flexi-feedstock”. At the beginning of August the “Longchamps” biomethane plant in the Franche- Comté region in eastern France went live, supplying 70 Nm³ per hour biomethane to the gas grid for French gas distributor Gaz réseau Distribution France, GrDF. Supplied by German biogas technology suppliers WELTEC Biopower GmbH the biogas plant uses around 6 000 tonnes of agricultural residues per annum. The novel upgrading unit, also supplied by WELTEC is a three-stage process using flexible and compact membrane technology that, according to the company, is highly efficient delivering a methane yield of about 99 percent. The methane is separated from carbon dioxide (CO₂), water vapour and other components with the help of special polymer membranes at am- in process and mixing technology and the resulting high-load digesters means we are in an excellent position to meet these requirements, said Eike Liekweg Board Member of Agraferm Technologies AG. BI81/4959/AS Agraferm wins new German biomethane project bid Small-scale biomethane to grid plant launched bient temperatures and without the addition of chemicals. Furthermore the upgraded methane from the process already has the required pressure for grid injection eliminating the need for post-upgrade compression. Together with a compact containerised setup, these cost saving features make it economically feasible for small biogas plants to invest in biomethane upgrading and grid injection. BI81/4989/AS Grass to gas in Papua New Guinea East Africa’s largest biogas power plant Set in Naivasha, Kenya, Gorge Farm is an 800 ha vegetable farm owned and operated by VP Group, the largest fresh-produce exporter in East Africa. In August a 2.8 MW installed capacity biogas power plant, the largest in East Africa, was commissioned at the farm site. The KES 765 million (≈ US$7.4 million) facility is to be owned and operated by Biojoule Kenya Ltd, an independent power producer (IPP) and part of Tropical Power Energy Group, the project developers. Through a partnership with VP Group the plant will use about 150 tonnes of vegetable feedstock per day, around 50 000 tonnes per annum, and the digestate will be used as fertiliser by local farms. Roughly half the electricity will be sold to Gorge Farm and the rest is to be supplied to the national grid making it the first utility scale facility ever to be granted a power purchase agreement by Kenya Power pending regulatory ratification. BI81/4998/AS
Bioenergy no 5 September 2015
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