At 37.66 metres in length, 4.80 meters in diameter and weighing 130 tonnes, the arrival of the LNG tank at BioEnergie Park Güstrow, scheduled for mid-December this year will mark another important – and above all, imposing – milestone in the conversion project for Germany’s biggest biogas plant with integrated bio-LNG unit to date, according to EnviTec.
“So far, we have already modernised and converted four of the five modules to meet all the latest standards,” explained Frank Hinken, managing director of EnviTec Bioenergie Güstrow. This conversion work includes new agitators, advanced pumping systems and double-membrane roofs. The last feature makes gas storage as capacious as possible while simultaneously variable. Hinken added: “This means biogas can be stored without time limitations and upgraded on a flexible timeplan.”
Running in parallel to this conversion work is another project to convert four large concentrate tanks, each with a 15,000 cubic metre capacity, into digestate tanks. Three new tanks will also be built. “That will then complete tank construction for now,” Hinken said. At each construction stage, between 20 and 60 employees from EnviTec Biogas and other companies are hard at work on the 31 ha site in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Currently, two of the five high-pressure water scrubbing lines, which were used to upgrade 1,000 Nm3 of biomethane per line, are still in operation. “The other lines have been dismantled, so as to create space for the planned CO2 liquefaction unit,” Hinken explained. The two future EnviThan gas upgrading units, which will replace the old high-pressure water scrubbing unit, are now waiting in their containers, already installed and tested, to be shipped to Güstrow. Foundations have already been poured for three of the four containers used by the innovative membrane upgrading technology, with preparations for the fourth now in progress.
These conversions have been supplemented by work on a retention structure in the form of a compressed earth wall. This safety barrier to block substrate leaks is needed to obtain a permit according to section 16 of the Federal Immission Control Act. “All of the approval procedures have been completed without any issues,” commented Birgit Bagert, managing director of von Lehmden Planning Consultants. “From the application submission in 2021 onwards, everyone has worked as a team and both the preparatory work completed by EnviTec and communications with the authorities have been a model of transparency and efficiency.”
With this plant, EnviTec Biogas said it was setting a milestone for the transport sector. From its planned pilot operation in the second quarter of 2023, the Güstrow plant will aim to supply significant quantities of purified bio-LNG to help make heavy goods traffic greener.
Numerous agreements have already been signed with customers looking to offer this LNG as an alternative fuel at their filling stations.
