News

AEK AG, a Swiss wood pellet manufacturer and subsidiary of energy provider AEK Energie, has started building a biomass drying facility at its pellet production site in Balsthal, Switzerland. The new facility, which will cost a total of 9 million Swiss Francs (€8.5 million), will dry the raw biomass material before it is used to produce wood pellets. In a statement, AEK said: 'Dry raw…
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Aria Energy, a provider of baseload renewable energy, has started commercial operations and renewable energy production at Sarasota County's Central County Solid Waste Disposal Complex located in Nokomis, Florida. The Sarasota project is a 4.8MW landfill gas-to-energy facility that produces renewable energy by capturing and processing the methane gas generated at the landfill through organic…
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Inspection company USFGIS and Twin Ports Testing have signed a strategic agreement to jointly enter the biomass market. Jane Vogt, USFGIS VP, says: 'By combining the strengths of both companies we create a single source solution for inspection and testing services to the biomass industry in a highly efficient way.' Twin Ports Testing has been involved in the wood pellet industry since the early…
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Glenfarne Asset Company (GAC), a subsidiary of New York-based privately held energy and infrastructure firm Glenfarne Group, has launched Prime Energia which will establish a 400MW portfolio of power plants in Chile through a mix of brownfield acquisition and greenfield development. Prime Energia's recently acquired 50MW brownfield backup power plant in Chile is part of a broader 750MW power…
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In Japan, Nippon Paper Industries and Mitsubishi have agreed to establish Nippon Paper Ishinomaki Energy Center, an electric power generation company that will build and operate a renewable power plant using a combination of biomass and coal in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture. The new company will set up the electric power generation facility on the Hibarino site owned by Nippon Paper…
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Weltec Biopower has started building a 500kW anaerobic digestion plant in Loughgall, Northern Ireland for vegetable producer Gilfresh. 'This is our third plant in Northern Ireland and the eleventh in the UK,' says Kevin Monson, sales manager of Weltec Biopower UK. Gilfresh grows a number of vegetables, including salad crops, root vegetables, cabbages and pak choi. The company used to send its…
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Cleanergy, an energy solution provider headquartered in Sweden, has installed one of its combined heat and power (CHP) systems at a wastewater treatment plant in Slovenia. The system, which comprises Cleanergy's GasBox – the centrepiece of its CHP technology – has been deployed at the Jesenice plant in the north west of the country and is now generating heat and electricity from dirty…
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Japanese trading firm Marubeni Corp. is reportedly set to build a 37MW biomass power station in Fukui prefecture, western Japan. Work is expected to begin on the facility in November 2015 with the scope to have it completed and running in summer 2017. According to a statement from the company earlier this month, the plant will run on wood chips and will have the capacity to generate enough power…
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Brazil-based ethanol producer USJ Acucar e Alcool SA will expand its 12MW biomass plant in Sao Joao after receiving a permit from Brazilian regulator Aneel. The facility, in Sao Paolo state, will have its capacity increased to 40MW. USJ will install an additional 28.75 MW unit to operate alongside the four 3MW bagasse-fuelled units currently on site. The permit also allows USJ to become an…
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Foresight Group and the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) have announced a £30 million (€41 million) investment in the construction of a new £60 million waste-to-energy gasification facility in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. The plant will be the first commercial-scale, refuse derived fuel (RDF) gasification plant to be construction financed by third party investors. The gasification…
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Vega Biofuels has placed an order for thousands of tonnes of biocoal for shipment to an international client. Manufactured from timber waste using torrefaction technology, biocoal has a high energy density of up to 13,000 BTUs/lb and is considered a renewable energy fuel that meets the Renewable Portfolio Standards and Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) in the US. Vega recently announced that it was…
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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…
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Sia Broceni Pellets, a subsidiary of Estonia-based forestry company Graanul Invest, has acquired 16 hectares of land in Latvia on which it will build a wood pellet plant. The facility will be able to produce around 150,000 tonnes a year of pellets when it comes online in the beginning of 2016. The company has already secured long-term supply contracts for the raw materials for the plant. This…
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Cellulosic sugars company Renmatix has announced an investment by the New Energies Division of Total, and the signature of a joint development agreement (JDA) between Total and Renmatix. Under the agreement, Renmatix and Total will utilise Renmatix's proprietary Plantrose process with specific feedstocks to extract sugar for use in production of biobased products of interest to Total. In concert…
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