Type certification comprises design assessment, implementation of the design requirements in production and erection, evaluation of quality management and prototype testing. And on the basis of type certification, project certification is carried out that covers site design conditions, site-specific design assessment, and surveillance during production, transport and erection as well as witnessing of commissioning and periodic monitoring.

Mike Woebbeking, GL Renewables Certification, explained the relevance of the new guidelines: “It is important for manufacturers of wind turbines and components as well as banks and insurers involved to know the different certification processes and guidelines.”

The Edition 2010 is to substitute the current Edition 2003 with Supplement 2004. “The new edition will additionally cover small wind turbines and latest information on several prominent wind energy markets. It will have effect on future wind turbine developments worldwide,” Mr. Woebbeking pointed out.

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.

Hywind, the world’s first full-scale, floating wind turbine designed for deployment offshore, is part of a 400 million NOK project. It features a 2.3MW Siemens turbine with three blades of 80 metre diameter, mounted on a spar buoy. It can be located in waters ranging from 120 to 700 metres depth in order to take advantage of optimum wind and environmental conditions, also obviating the need for foundations, which are extremely expensive at depths greater than 30 to 50 m.

The tower, rising to 65 metres above sea level, is marked by three Tideland MLED-155 Syncrolan, single-lift light stations, each with a range of 5 NM. They are mounted on stainless steel pedestals at 120° intervals around the circumference of the tower at a height of 15 metres and are quipped with 48-hour battery back-up.

Tideland’s MLED-155 is designed for use with an external power source, in this case solar, and offers minimal maintenance requirements and a service life of seven years on station in the most demanding environments. Long-life LEDs and high-integrity electronics housed in a tough UV-resistant polycarbonate enclosure ensure that lantern will not need to be opened during its service life and, when buoy-mounted, will even withstand being submerged in salt water. In the Hywind application, it is fitted with a yellow MaxiHalo 60 multi-code LED flasher, sunswitch and on-board GPS to synchronize the flash code.

Information: Tideland Signal

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.

Plants for solar module manufacturing have to make use of all means to cut costs effectively. The changing legal aspects on solar feed-in tariffs increase the pressure on quality and costs along the whole manufacturing chain.

Producers of thin-film silicon solar cells have high demands on the performance of the manufacturing plants and the system components within. The new vacuum pump series Dryvac from Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum has been designed to fit and to increase the present and the future technological advantages for these demanding production and process requirements.

This applies also to the operating costs: these dry screw pumps can save up to 3000 euro per year compared to similar pumps with identical suction volume, depending on operating parameters. This helps the producers of thin film silicon solar modules to lower operating costs and increase their profits.

The present market situation has once more increased the demands on plant availability and requirements. Developing the Dryvac, these requirements were taken into consideration, especially with regard to reliability. These pumps are ideal for demanding load lock applications and are resistant against dust, vapors and particles. They effectively pump light gases, but also toxic and corrosive gases such as NF3 gases used in the solar industry to flush coating chambers.

Relevant pump parameters of the Dryvac can be visualized during operation via a touch screen monitor. The i-variants with integrated self-control can communicate via data exchange between pump and plant controls using various interfaces. Of course, the touch-panel can also be used. For pump control, there are multiple sensors such as temperature control with warning functions, and a pressure sensor for monitoring the exhaust pressure. Moreover, the data of the integrated frequency converter can also be visualized.

The Dryvac combines the screw technology pumping principle with a very compact design, offering additional advantages to the customer. In the standard vertical combination with a Ruvac Roots pump, the footprint at the production line is minimized. In addition, the pump combination can be executed horizontally which extremely minimizes the height of the system.

An effective water cooling concept with optimized cooling canal design keeps the pump and motor temperature low and thus enhances lifetime performance. If needed, the motor can be exchanged directly at the production line. Inspection and cleaning of the channels are simple to execute as there are hardly residues due to the innovative cooling channel design. And as a dry pump, there is no risk of oil contamination, which further reduces service and operating costs.

One answer to the various demands of solar manufacturing is the modular design of the Dryvac series, offering customized and effective solutions. Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum not only offers components, but also standardized application oriented solutions, and of course fully customer specific vacuum technology solutions.

Solar energy will only become cost competitive due to intensive technological progress. Decisive factors for further investment into solar technology will be cost and quality. Vacuum technology innovations such as the Dryvac line of Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum combine proven technology with innovative features and therefore contribute effectively to improving production parameters.

The screw pump series Dryvac will be exhibited at the booth of Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum GmbH at the Photon in Stuttgart. (Hall 6, Row: L, Booth: 32).

Torspyd technology innovative process is based on the ‘solid organics distillation principle’. This patented technology, designed and developed by Thermya, enables to fully dehydrate and then depolymerize the biomass in order to produce an absolutely hydrophobic and homogeneous solid fuel. It is characterized by the highest energy yields performance of all technologies known to date. Torrefaction by Torspyd allows converting all kinds of biomass into BioCoal. This BioCoal, which contains less than 1 percent moisture, retains 95 percent of the initial biomass energy and more than 90 percent of its initial dry mass. The BioCoal’s net calorific value is around 20500 kJ/kg; far greater than the one of non-torrefied biomass. BioCoal can be mixed to fossil coal and co-fired in thermal power stations without any modification of the facilities. Co-firing BioCoal, as a substitute for coal, eliminates mix-rate limitations, reduces CO2, SO4 and NOx emissions. On top of that, thanks to lower NOx emissions, co-firing BioCoal allows to achieve equivalent energy efficiency with reduced fuel consumption.

As a result of its hydrophobic properties BioCoal cannot incur any biological degradations and can therefore be stored and shipped safely without any risk linked to climate conditions. The Torspyd torrefaction column is energy self-sufficient: the re-injection of 4 percent of the BioCoal production into the torrefaction system allows complementing the process’s operational energy requirements. “Today, Thermya is the only company in Europe to offer an industrially proven, fully operational biomass torrefaction continuous process”, explains Jean-Sebastian Hery, Technical Vice-President and co-founder of Thermya. Thermya signed a first license agreement in 2009 with the Spanish company Idema, Group Lantec. Through this agreement Idema will build torrefaction units based on the Torspyd process.

“Main benefits of our Torspyd technology are unrivalled performance levels and low operating costs. Torspyd is the relevant response to the environmental and economical issues electricity producers, operating coal-fired power stations, are currently facing. It also opens up opportunities for manufacturers of classical wood pellets or forest operators, whose production could gain considerable value from torrefaction. Classical pellets are indeed commonly produced from sawdust or from co products of the primary wood processing industry. Our technology, however, is designed to produce premium quality biomass fuel (totally dry and hydrophobic) directly from forestry residues – hardly used at present. Besides all that, producing premium quality pellets from torrefied wood is less energy-consuming than producing classical wood pellets”, comments Hervé Chauvin, Managing Director and co-founder of Thermya.

GTE’s automatic online wash cleaning system has been designed to provide gas turbine operators the advantage of incorporating its patented water wash technology, which is seamlessly integrated into Siemens WDPF control system as an optimal solution for operational flexibility.

“The GTE water wash system is valuable because it is an easy to use, low maintenance cleaning system,” said Bishoff. “Thanks to its implementation, the unit can maintain the power output, reduce fuel and parts costs, and provide added operational flexibility.”

Bishoff will present evidence supporting how GTE’s unit can cut the engine degradation in half in comparison to the OEM water wash system, while demonstrating an average percent power benefit of 1.18% and motivating an average increase in engine efficiency of 0.42%.

GTE offers similar systems for most industrial gas turbines, utilizing its proprietary technology to create cost-effective solutions to a common need for power plant operators in the Energy Industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOkZU2ga64w

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.