Pioneering energy from waste business Energos, part of Ener-g Plc, has won a British Renewable Energy Award for its innovative development of the UK’s first gasification plant to operate from waste.
The advanced thermal conversion project on the Isle of Wight, part of the government’s New Technology Demonstrator Programme, was judged an outstanding achievement by awards organisers The Renewable Energy Association – winning the Developer Award.
The small, community sized plant, which is set to open this July, will run alongside a recycling operation to generate 2.3MW of green electricity from residual waste, enough to power more than 3,000 homes.
“We are delighted to receive this award and are very proud to have made available to the UK waste industry the first gasification plant on waste”, said Nick Dawber, managing director of Energos. “We believe that our strategy of providing community sized energy from waste solutions that complement local recycling initiatives is the way forward.
“At the Isle of Wight we want to show how this advanced technology can be utilised at the heart of any community to provide an environmentally friendly, low emission solution to local residual waste”.
The awards judges commented: “We believe the renewable energy uses for bioenergy residues offer huge potential for contributing to both sustainable energy and waste reduction objectives. We consider that innovative new projects, such as the Energos gasification plant, will make a substantial contribution and deserve recognition."
Runners-up for the Developer award category were Carvill Group Ltd, for Woodbrook, and Warwick Energy Limited for Thanet Offshore Windfarm.
Both runners up were highly recommended.
Energos uses its own patented gasification technology – an advanced thermal treatment process that converts residual waste into a gas by using the heat of partial combustion to liberate the hydrocarbons within the waste.
Residual waste is fed into the gasification chamber, where it is converted into a syngas. This syngas is then transferred to a secondary oxidation chamber where it is fully oxidised in a controlled environment that enables much tighter control than can be achieved in conventional energy from waste plants – resulting in extremely low emissions. The resulting heat is recovered to produce steam and/or electricity.
The Isle of Wight plant has been awarded preliminary ROC accreditation by Ofgem. It will generate green electricity from the 30,000 tonnes of residual waste from the 60,000 tonnes currently being processed at the Island Waste Services resource recovery facility.
This facility is helping the Isle of Wight in its bid to become an Eco Island and will support the local Council in becoming a top performer for responsible waste management, dramatically reducing the amount of valuable landfill space it uses up, while complementing its recycling efforts.
There are six similar Energos plants operating in Norway and Germany and the technology has been in use for more than eight years, achieving over 350,000 hours of operating experience.
The company has a track record for ultra low emissions. Dioxin emissions from Energos plants are typically 1% of the EU safe limit. This is achieved by the extremely effective control of the combustion of the syngas in the second stage combined with the unique design of the boiler system that cools the gas down rapidly to reduce the reformation of dioxins.
As part of its continuous improvement programme, Energos’ R&D team has been developing a new reactor, which will be introduced to the Isle of Wight plant. This will promote increased efficiency and availability enabling fewer interruptions and downtime.
Alongside the Isle of Wight’s new gasification facility, investment is being made in the existing waste processing and recycling equipment at the Isle of Wight Council’s Resource Recovery Facility, operated by Biffa subsidiary Island Waste Services, the Isle of Wight Council’s integrated waste management contractor. The new facility will extract recyclable material from waste delivered to the site and residual waste will be processed to provide fuel for the gasification plant.
This project will deliver significant environmental benefits to Isle of Wight residents. It will cut out the need to use heavy vehicles to transport floc fuel to the mainland. Another benefit of this localised solution is that because the energy will be used on the Island, there will be little wastage during the transmission process. Currently, electricity comes from the mainland.
With its visitor centre, the facility will welcome visitors from across the UK and Europe to see world class best practice in action.
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