BioEnergy and materials handling manufacturer for the bioenergy industry,Saxlund International, has won a contract to supply biowaste combustion and fuel handling solutions to a 3.4 MW wood waste to energy facility in Bedfordshire, UK.
The facility is being developed by Twinwoods Heat & Power, and has received funding from the Environmental Infrastructure Development Company (EIDC).
According to Saxlund the state-of-the-art clean burn solution will enable Twinwoods Heat & Power to finalise development of the 3.4MWe waste wood biomass power station, which is expected to go live in 2015.
Once operational the company said that the combined heat and power (CHP) wood waste to energy plant will produce over 27,000 MWhr of electricity and 8000 MWhr district heating annually.
The Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) compliant solution will is expected to process around 40,000 tonnes of waste wood from commercial and domestic recycling centres per annum, a fuel source that would otherwise be sent to landfill or exported.
EIDC explained that it worked closely with the original developer to structure an equipment solution that allowed a previously incomplete project to be replaced with a ‘chute to stack’ package provided and guaranteed by Saxlund.
Under the contract Saxlund will manage all aspects of design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of the plant with a biomass solution, which it said is guaranteed to deliver at least 8000 hours operation between shutdown inspection.
Key components include the fuel handling system with push floor and conveyors, the Saxlund combustion grate, integrated high pressure steam boiler and steam pipework to feed a Siemens turbine system.
The technology supplier said that it has already made similar installations in a number of locations in Europe, such as the 2.4 MWe Falbygden biomass plant in Sweden (pictured).
Marcus Buckle, CEO of Twinwoods Heat & Power, said that the decision to involve Saxlund was taken, “after thorough and exhaustive research into their track record in this field, both in the UK and in Europe”.
Matt Drew, managing director of Saxlund International added: “We see real opportunities for small-scale locally-based CHP biomass solutions such as Twinwoods in the 2 to 5MWe range.”
“Solutions like these capitalise on waste wood which would otherwise be exported and are driven in part by the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) which offers considerable benefits to operators and investors,” he added.
Uniti Bhalla, partner at Capital Partners, a European fund manager which also funded Twinwoods concluded that its transaction was borne out of an initiative to invest in small scale renewable assets in the UK with the aim of building a portfolio of scale.
“Twinwoods represents exactly the type of investment that we are targeting – core infrastructure with some associated complexity, thereby delivering a good risk adjusted return. We continue to see attractive opportunities in this niche,” explained Bhalla.
