Energos Gasification For Energy-Recovery Plant

Commissioning is underway at a second Energos gasification plant at Borregaard Industries, Sarpsborg, in Norway - the company's eighth energy-recovery facility (ERF) in Europe. The facility is owned by Hafslund Heat and Power AS, who appointed Energos to deliver the MandE package. The Energos process will recover in excess of 80 per cent of the energy contained in the non-recyclable waste. The plant will reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by an approximate total of 40,000 tonnes a year.

A further six Energos plants - Newport, Irvine, Lincolnshire, Barry, Doncaster and Knowsley - have received UK planning permission and are targeted to open in 2013. In Europe, Energos is said to offer the only proven and commercially viable gasification technology capable of generating renewable energy from municipal waste and post-recycling residue. It offers a clean energy-recovery-from-waste solution that provides an alternative to mass-burn incineration and a commercially proven and bankable alternative to landfill.

Energos uses its own gasification technology, an advanced two-stage thermal- treatment process that converts residual, non-recyclable waste into a gas by using the heat of partial combustion to liberate the hydrogen and carbon within the waste. Residual waste is fed into the gasification chamber, where it is manufactured into a syngas. This syngas is then transferred to a secondary oxidation chamber, where it is fully combusted 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 energy is used to produce steam, which can be used to supply renewable heat and/or electricity. A typical Energos plant generates 8MW of green electricity. As such, facilities can be sited next to energy consumers to optimise heat recovery, or in locations where a heat-delivery or district heating system could be developed. The track record of all the operating Energos plants shows that dioxin emissions are typically one per cent of the EU safe limit.

This is achieved by the effective control of the combustion of the syngas in the second stage, combined with the design of the boiler system that cools the gas down rapidly to reduce the reformation of dioxins. Finally, any residual dioxins are removed using carbon and a filter to remove dust particles. NOX emissions are less than 25 per cent of the EU limit, without any form of de-NOX system.