LandEnergy to use biomass power in wood pellet production

UK - Wood pellet firm LandEnergy is developing a series of new production plants, as it seeks to move from being a trading company towards becoming a manufacturer of the biomass fuel

The CHP system has been ordered from Italian firm Turboden, to use Organic Rankine Cycle technology to generate around 2MW of electricity and about 9.5MW of heat energy.

John Westmacott, managing director of LandEnergy, which has offices in London and at Helmsley in North Yorkshire, explained that his company was aiming to build production plants at as many as four locations around the country. Proposals are currently at varying stages in the planning process.

The plants being planned would see production levels of around 55,000 tonnes of wood pellets each year, he said, using feedstock from virgin forestry sources in the UK.

The company has already revealed its hopes to convert a potato processing site in Wombleton, North Yorkshire into a wood pellet plant, with plans lodged with Ryedale district council. A similar project at Presteigne in mid-Wales would see £10 million of investment to convert an animal feed plant into a wood pellet facility.

"At a time when you're hearing about all these biomass power stations shipping wood fuel in from abroad, we want to be very, very clear that we have the shortest supply chain for wood pellets," Mr Westmacott said.

LandEnergy's primary markets for its wood pellets are likely to be domestic biomass heating and small commercial heating systems in schools and offices.

Currently, the company has wood pellets delivered to its Yorkshire site before distributing the project to end users. This summer saw it attracting £5 million in investment from the Foresight Group to help further its ambitions towards becoming a wood pellet manufacturer.

CHP

LandEnergy has signed an exclusive agreement with German CHP specialists Gammel Engineering as its plant designers, for all of its future production plants.

The company has already had experience developing more than 150 biomass CHP projects mainly in Germany and central Europe.

The first turbine from manufacturers Turboden is expected to be delivered within 12 months, with Mr Westmacott explaining that it would be used in whichever production project gets through the planning process first.

Technology

The Turboden system is available in a range of sizes, from 0.5MW electrical power up to 2MW.

The technology involves biomass fuel being burned to heat oil within a boiler, which is then used within an "Organic Rankine Cycle" unit to vaporise an organic "working fluid" that drives a turbine to generate power. The ORC also heats water alongside the power generation, which can be used for space heating purposes and hot water supply.

Waste heat from the system is recovered to continue heating the boiler, with the organic "working fluid" cycling back around the system to keep driving the turbine.

Studies of the system have suggested that turbine efficiencies of around 85% can be achieved, while there are also said to be advantages from using a system that does not rely on high-pressure steam to drive the turbine.

There are currently 81 Turboden plants already in operation, including 10 in the pellet sector across Europe, where they are used to supply the heat needed for drying sawdust to produce wood pellet fuel.

Turboden says used in pellet plants processing eight tonnes of material an hour using a 1.6MW (electrical) CHP system can compete with electricity prices of around 0.11 to 0.12 euros per kWh (about 9p per kWh).