News

Babcock & Wilcox Vølund, a Danish thermal energy producer, has ordered a state-of-the-art biomass handling system from Saxlund, part of the Swedish Opcon Group. The system will be delivered to Babcock & Wilcox Vølund’s (BWV) Templeborough Biomass Power Plant in Sheffield, UK. The scope of the order is the design, manufacturing, delivery, and commissioning of a dual…
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The operators of a UK combined heat and power (CHP) biogas plant report they have manage to reduce the plant’s power consumption by half. The Agrigen-Siemens plant in Suffolk has been fitted with Siemens automation technology, including a controller, distributed I/O, and visualisation software. The plant’s height, pressure, and temperature measurements are performed using radar level…
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Hamrick Engineering, a US-based start-up, has received a broad patent for extracting sugars and nanocellulose from lignocellulosic biomass by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This new technology uses an environmentally benign technique of vacuum infusion of hydrolysis catalysts into biomass. ‘This ground-breaking patent describes how to extract sugars and nanocellulose from…
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An anaerobic digestion (AD) facility built in South Kirkby, West Yorkshire, UK, has been hit with a four-month delay in becoming fully operational. The hold-up could add several millions of pounds to the commissioning budget at the plant that has already had £750 million (€1.06bln) invested to it. Shanks, the UK waste-to-product company responsible for running the plant in a 25-year…
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Operations have started at Hitachi Zosen Corp.'s 3 billion yen (€22.7 million) Miyanosato biomass-fired power plant in Hitachiota City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Hitachi Zosen has been building the plant, with a power output of 5,750kW, since 2013. The new facility will process waste wood, a material that is abundantly available in Ibaraki due to the large forestry industry. Approximately…
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Plymouth University is working with New Generation Biogas, a Devon, UK, company, to hone the design of its anaerobic digestion (AD) system. By giving New Generation Biogas (NGB) access to its facilities and expertise, Plymouth University (PU) has helped the Totnes-based firm observe the microbes that transform waste close-up and understand what makes them thrive. NGB used the world-class…
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Veolia, through its subsidiary Veolia Japan, has been awarded two contracts to operate two biomass-fired power plants in northern Japan, in partnership with local environmental services company Takeei. These two contracts, both of which have been signed for 20 years, represent total revenue of €90 million for Veolia. The facilities, which are located in the cities of Hirakawa and Hanamaki in…
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Weltec Biopower, a German bioenergy producer, and Aquatec Maxcon are building a 1MW anaerobic digestion (AD) biogas plant in Melbourne, Australia. Construction of the plant, first of its kind in Australia, began in October and will be finished by the end of 2016. The plant was ordered by water supply and sewage services company Yarra Valley Water, which with the construction is set to become…
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The Association of Anaerobic Digestion Operators (AADO) has secured confirmation of the Partial Harmonisation methodology, proposed by the European Commission for the management of digestate. The confirmation comes prior to the announcement of the amendment to the EU Fertilisers Regulation due under the Circular Economy review later this year. Since autumn 2014, concerns have been raised by AADO…
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PrecisionHawk, a terrestrial data acquisition and analysis company, and Genera Energy have partnered to develop new analysis algorithms specific to improving the efficiency and quality of sustainable biomass crop production and distribution. The algorithms will convert raw aerial imagery collected by drones and satellites into an actionable report for biomass crop farmers. The tools will be…
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Downing, a London-based investment management firm, has recently agreed terms for a £20 million (€27.8m) pipeline of biomass installations with Strand Energy. Under the terms of the agreement, Downing and Strand will form a joint venture – Strand Energy (Biomass) – to invest in biomass heating installations. The joint venture has an initial target of £20 million of…
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Precision Energy Services (PES), a US-based renewable energy technical services provider, has been awarded a contract to engineer, supply, and provide technical support for the installation, commissioning, and start-up of a second paper mill sludge-to-energy system for Atlantic Packaging in Toronto, Canada. Atlantic Packaging, which owns and operates three paper facilities in the greater Toronto…
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Barenbrug, one of the largest grass seed producers in the UK, has released initial observations from a research trial assessing the suitability of different grass varieties and mixtures as feedstocks for anaerobic digestion (AD) plants. At its 15-acre Cropvale trial site in Worcestershire, Barenbrug is mid-way through a two-year programme evaluating the AD potential of a range of shorter-term…
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Pretreating municipal solid waste (MSW) in an autoclave before sending it to anaerobic digestion (AD) could increase methane generation by over 300% and substantially reduce the amount of material requiring disposal, research by Aerothermal Group says. As part of the research, Dr. Zhengjian Wang and Dr. Nigel Baily conducted experiments in triplicate on two waste streams at Aerothermal’s…
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