The new plant, which belongs to the Rothwell Lodge Farm in the East Midlands, will convert 30,000 t of biowaste and manure of the farm‘s cattle herd into electricity. The substrate of close-by farms (pig manure, flotate fat) will be fed into the two fermenters of 106,000 cu ft each in order to supply about 2,000 homes with power and heat. Two tanks of 120,000 cu ft each serve as digestate storage units. A hygienisation unit heats the digestate to 70°C in order to make it fit for use as fertiliser.

The last three plant orders that WELtec received from Wales, England, and Scotland use industrial food waste as substrate.

Especially in the field of biogas, the container represents an economic overall package consisting of a biogas genset, a standard container, and biogas processing. All components are tuned to each other in the best way possible and are perfectly aligned with the special requirements of biogas operation.
Moreover, the cooling water and exhaust gas heat exchanger are integrated in the heating circuit. The TA-Luft exhaust gas regulations are complied with, and the requirements for the emission reduction bonus (e.g. for Germany) for limiting formaldehyde by means of active carbon desulfurization, catalysis, gas cool drying and, if necessary, compression, are met. Depending on the application case, the engines can be adjusted for various natural gas and special gas qualities in addition to biogas. 

The engine, which is designed for operation with natural gas, supersedes its predecessor of the same designation and the previous model TCG 2020 OLS and will also be built in a V12 and a V16 version. The development has resulted in a 10 percent performance increase and improved efficiency. The company states the electrical output at 1,125 kW for the V12 variant and 1,500 kW for the V16. With a 400 V generator, the electrical efficiency for both cylinder types is 41.0 percent.

“Among other things, a newly developed turbo charger and an optimized combustion chamber contributed to the increase in performance and efficiency, while retaining the load response and isolated operation capabilities of the predecessor model”, explains Armin Roeseler, Head of Product Management at MWM. Furthermore, the inlet and the spark plugs have been optimized.

The efficiency is higher than 75 percent, as the duck coops and parts of the close-by village will be connected to the heat network. In view of this efficiency, the farmer will receive the maximum feed-in tariff. Instead of an excess gas burner, a heat reservoir with a capacity of approximately 70 cubic metre will be installed. The operator has already guaranteed an expansion investment for the plant.

The second premium plant from Weltec BioPower was sold in collaboration with the partner Domaix Energie to Colombey les Choiseul, about 250 kilometer west of Strasbourg. The installation of the biogas plant, which will have a 1571 cubic metre fermenter and a 30 cubic metre dosing feeder, will begin in March 2010. In the 250-kilowatt plant, the digestate from the biowaste will be heated in the hygienisation unit, separated, and finally dried with a belt dryer. The dry matter will be converted to pellets that the operator plans to sell as fuel.

The Weltec plant is designed for liquid and solid cattle manure, leftovers, cereals silage, bakery waste, and flotate fat. Apart from a compensation of the heat, the feed-in tariff for electricity will be 15 cents per kWh el, as this plant, too, boasts an efficiency of 75 percent. Since October 2009, the revised French emission control legislation has greatly simplified both the registration and the approval procedure for biogas plants, resulting in an increased number of biogas-related orders from France. The change in law followed the declaration of the intention to promote biogas projects at the environment summit in Paris in autumn 2007.

The EU and the Czech government provide special investment incentives for biogas plant projects in the Czech Republic. In line with the EU climate protection goals, the government intends to generate 10 percent of the energy from alternative sources by 2010. 
Czech power producers receive 12.9 or 15.2 ct/kWh for a period of 15 years. The eco tax, which was introduced in 2008 and which makes fossil energy sources more expensive, serves as an additional incentive.

The plant‘s two 60,000-cubic-feet fermenters will be fed with 15,000 tons of pig manure and 1,500 tons of rice straw a year. The resources will come from farms in the vicinity. The concept of the WELtec plant to be established in Wuxi, a city of 4.5 million people located 45 minutes driving distance to the west of Shanghai, is based on the processing of gas to biomethane for own use. In China, it is not yet common practice to feed in generated energy into the electricity grid. Therefore, the common approach is either to generate biomethane and use it directly or to use the generated energy directly for own needs.

China‘s activities in the field of renewable energies are ambitious; though the country has huge coal reserves (estimated at 120 billion tons), it hardly has any gas and oil reserves. Although coal is being used intensively, the population often experiences outages due to the low efficiency of the coal-fired power plants. This is another reason for the trend towards decentralised combined heat and power supply. Biogas is becoming increasingly popular especially in rural areas, where about 900 million Chinese live.

The Oldenburger trade fair sees a considerable increase in exhibitor and visitor numbers. More than 50 companies showcased their new products and services for the gas industry at the 2009 edition. Here, visitors had the opportunity to discuss concrete solutions face-to-face with energy providers, gas transportation companies, IT specialists and consultants.

“This is an important and natural expansion of GTE’s portfolio of offerings. The extensive experience and track record of the team is important because the service is technically complex and is on the customer’s project critical path,” said Steven Zwolinski, Chief Executive Officer for GTE. “Every gas turbine, regardless of application or geography, requires this service at regular intervals. The new service strengthens commercial relationships with existing and new customers because it is a service that is deployed on their site, at regular recurring maintenance intervals. The new offering has been well received by GTE’s existing customers with new incremental orders for 2009 and has commitments in backlog for 2010.”
The Turbine Services group includes a technical advisory and field supervisory staff with combined experience of more than 200 years of industry expertise in combustion turbine assembly, field services relating to gas and steam turbines, engineering and operations management, and combustion turbine assembly. Most of these industry experts were involved with the manufacturing of the original General Electric F-class units.

Bio Energy
The first biogas aggregates had a capacity of between 190 and 350 kWe. Market demand for higher capacity was growing. For this reason Bredenoord decides to develop installations with 800 kWe. This aggregate has a unique integrated operating system. A heat recovery system is standard in the installations.

50th installation
The 50th installation is build at the farm of Jan van Alphen in the Dutch town of Axel. The aggregate is used for the biogasinstallation and has a capacity of 800 kWe.