Advanced Plasma Power (APP), Broadcrown and Royal Dahlman have each submitted plans for the delivery of a demonstrator plant in a 2.8 million competition to show how energy-from-waste gasification could achieve a commercial output of between 5-20MW.
All three firms have now provided engineering design studies, which have been tested through a combination of laboratory and pilot-scale research on different waste feedstocks and through modelling.
If successful, the chosen firm could see their plant built, tested and in operation by 2016 at one of three sites in Tyseley, Wednesbury and Grimsby where the demonstrator facilities have been proposed (see letsrecycle.com story). ETI is expected to announce which firm will receive funding for construction in the coming months.
The APP-led consortium model in Tyseley, which received planning permission from Birmingham city council in December 2013, will produce a clean syngas via its Gasplasma technology with a power output of 5MW.
Rolf Stein, chief executive officer of APP, said: We are very pleased to have submitted a strong proposal for this project. We have found the ETI process very valuable in helping us develop a commercially attractive smaller offering of 5 MW which is around a third of the size of our standard offering.
Grimsby
Meanwhile, Royal Dahlman has led a team of British, Swiss, American and Dutch partners in order to develop plans for a 7MW plant in Grimsby using MILENA-OLGA technology. The firm is awaiting planning permission from North East Lincolnshire council for the facility.
Jan-Willem Knemann, sales manager for renewable technology at the company, said the 7MW plant will set a new standard in waste to energy efficiency.
And, Broadcrown participated with European and American firms to design a 3MW facility in Wednesbury that won planning permission from Sandwell council in November last year.
Broadcrown chief technologist Kamal Kalsi said: We look forward to the decision from the ETI on Phase II which if to our advantage will enable us to commence our commercialisation plan of delivering over 50 plants across the UK within the next 10 years.
The chosen plant will initially operate at the demonstration site for up to three years before continuing as a commercial venture.
ETI
The competition is part of a 13 million project launched in 2012 by ETI a partnership between energy companies including BP, E.ON and Shell, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to develop alternative sources of energy and help meet the UKs 2050 climate change targets.
Co-ordinated by the groups Bio-Energy programme, the project intends to demonstrate how advanced gasification can convert typical wastes into electricity and heat on a commercial scale.
Commenting on the competition, bio-energy manager Paul Winstanley added: Each proposal was extremely well received by the planners and the Environment Agency. Our request was to design an economically and commercially viable, efficient energy from waste gasification demonstrator plant, and each of these three companies demonstrated they could exceed our specifications on a variety of feedstocks.
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