Cleanenergy to convert methane gas into electricity at Germany wastewater treatment plant

Sweden-headquartered Cleanergy, a specialist in the development, manufacture and deployment of energy solutions, has announced the first deployment of its GasBox at a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Germany.

Cleanergy's GasBox, which is at the heart of its complete combined heat and power (CHP) system, has been developed to generate electricity and heat from the methane gas being emitted at smaller wastewater treatment plants. The GasBox works with methane of varying quality containing multiple contaminants and has been designed to cope with variations in the supply of methane.

The plant in Saxony treats the wastewater from approximately 35,000 PE (population equivalent). It is now using Cleanergy's GasBox system to generate around 160kWh of electricity and 600kWh of thermal energy every day which is being used for lighting, heating and powering equipment on-site.
The GasBox was installed and optimised by WUDAG, Cleanergy's partner in Germany.

Anders Koritz, CEO at Cleanergy, says: 'The traditional systems for treating biogas are far too expensive for smaller waste-water treatment plants. Our GasBox was developed to provide a cost-effective option with a short return on investment. We have filled a huge gap in the market and this is a highly promising market opportunity for Cleanergy.'

With an ROI of between three and five years, Cleanergy's GasBox is already commercially deployed at a wastewater plant in Slovenia as well as landfills in Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK. Installed inside a modular container, Cleanergy's GasBox is an autonomous and flexible stirling engine unit. Also inside the container is a real-time power management system with remote access; a fuel pipe; plus a heat and electricity connection to a house/factory/warehouse with optional grid functionality.