Babcock & Wilcox Vølund: First municipal WTE facility in Ireland
Indaver Ireland has awarded Danish-based Babcock & Wilcox Vølund the contract to develop and supply its WTE technologies to Ireland’s first municipal WTE plant located in Meath, Ireland. The project is the largest single investment ever in solid waste management infrastructure in Ireland.
The Belgium-based Indaver Group is an integrated service provider in waste management – covering the entire waste management chain from consulting and on-site management, collection, pre-treatment, reuse, recycling and thermal treatment to final disposal of waste.
 A plan for the finished plant in Meath, Ireland |
Indaver will manage the overall construction of the WTE facility in Duleek, County Meath, at a total value of approximately €130 million (US$191 million), with a capacity to process approx. 200,000 tonnes of waste per year – and thereby producing energy for 20,000 private homes in the region. The construction started in September 2008 and the new facility is expected to be operational in 2011. More than 300 jobs will be created during the construction process.
Indaver Ireland has selected Babcock & Wilcox Vølund as a sub-contractor to develop and supply its most advanced state-of-the art waste fired power plant technology to be installed in the plant in Meath before the end of 2011.
‘At a time when we face economic uncertainty and crisis all over the world, The Indaver Group is delighted to launch a positive contribution to Ireland and to the Meath region that goes against the flow. Together with our partners on this project we are constructing the first state-of the-art WTE facility in Ireland ever which is meeting all the environmental requirements and objectives for green technology in combination with high efficiency and value for money,’ says John Ahern, managing director of Indaver Ireland.
This new waste fired power plant in Meath is the first project contract that Danish-based Babcock & Wilcox Vølund has been awarded in Ireland. And the project will be a showcase for the company’s dedicated R&D efforts.
‘We are very proud to be selected as partner and supplier of our technologies by The Indaver Group to Ireland’s first waste fired power plant in Meath – and we look forward to cooperating with the company on this very prestigious project. We see the Meath facility as an important breakthrough in Ireland for this environmentally friendly technology as a competitive and efficient alternative to conventional energy production,’ says Peter Laursen, department manager at Babcock & Wilcox Vølund.
For further information visit www.indaver.com or www.volund.dk, or e-mail: pel@volund.dk
COWI: Integrated waste and energy planning
Danish consultancy COWI is currently working on a waste management scheme for Dublin, and its 1.7 million inhabitants. Part of this scheme is the construction and operation of a 600,000 tons (544,000 tonnes) per annum WTE facility to treat and dispose of the rising amounts of MSW. A WTE facility will provide environmentally-safe thermal treatment of the city’s waste and at the same time reduce dependency on imported fuels and decrease the emission of greenhouse gases.
Initial plans were to recover energy from the waste for generation of electricity, but it was decided that it would also make sense to also exploit the heat potential. For that reason a decision was made to investigate how combined heat and power in the form of District Heating and Cooling (DHC) – which has allowed Danish WTE facilities to achieve a high rate of efficiency – could be introduced.
The redevelopment of the Dublin docklands, from traditional port activities to modern office and residential neighbourhoods, gave the city the opportunity to introduce district heating and cooling into this area. The first phase of a DHC scheme is now under construction on the north bank of the River Liffey.
There are plans for future expansion into other parts of the city, and within the next 10 years, a potential heat market of 250,000 MWh per year may be serviced through a 40 km long district heating network. In 2008, Dublin City Council decided to initiate the first stage of the project in Spencer Dock. This construction work is presently going on, and the first district heat will be delivered to all connected buildings in the area by the year 2011.
Heat will be supplied from the new WTE plant now under construction on Poolbeg Peninsula in the harbour area. The WTE plant is expected to start operation at the end of 2012. Beside extraction of district heat, the WTE facility has been designed with focus on electrical efficiency, and targets a net electrical efficiency of 29%, which is among the worlds highest. District heating will contribute positively to meeting Ireland’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. The analyses showed that the citywide system will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 32,000 tonnes per annum.
Please visit www.cowi.com or e-mail: jbj@cowi.dk, oba@cowi.dk or nija@cowi.dk
BMH Technology Oy: The Tyrannosaurus® process
The Tyrannosaurus® Process was designed for WTE profitability. The plants consist of heavy-duty, industrial equipment. All machines are created and optimized to work together to deliver an efficient waste-to-fuel plant. The plants are highly automated and delivered as turn-key.
 QA/QC check of Tyrannosaurus® 7703 Shredder at BMH workshop |
A wide range of waste types can be processed, from household and commercial waste to industrial waste, and difficult mono fractions can be turned into high quality Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF). Furthermore, tyres can be chipped with the Tyrannosaurus® equipment into TDF (Tyre Derived Fuel) with high capacity in a truly industrial manner, including bulk feeding.
The feeder is a buffer putting the optimum amount of waste into the process to ensure maximum production capacity. The shredder reduces any material into one size (e.g. 80 mm) in one phase ensuring efficiency for the subsequent separation equipment.
Ferrous metals are separated by belt magnets, while sand, soil, organics and other small heavy and wet particles are separated by the fines screen. Conductive metals, such as aluminium and copper, are separated by eddy current separators. The heavy fraction, which consists of inert material – such as stones, glass, concrete, rest metals and heavy organic fractions – is separated by the air classifier.
The end product of the Tyrannosaurus® Process – the SRF – is light fluff, which predominantly consists of two-dimensional material, such as plastic foils, paper, cardboard and textiles. If the combustion process calls for a smaller particle size, a fine shredder is added that enables the fraction to be shredded further down (e.g. to 20 mm).
SRF produced by the Tyrannosaurus® Process is clean, standardized fuel that contains a high calorific value. This fuel can be used in different types of power boilers and cement kilns, as well as other industrial combustion processes. Finally, the unique feature of the Tyrannosaurus® Process is its ability to turn the entire feedstock into high quality reusable fractions.
A newly launched member in the product family is the Tyrannosaurus® 6600 Primary Shredder. This hook-type shredder has advantages over other primary shredders on the market when it comes to ease of maintenance, operational safety and reliability.
For more info please e-mail: bmh@bmh.fi
EER Ltd: Plasma gasification melting (PGMTM) takes off
Environmental Energy Resources Ltd., (EER), a technology company based in Israel has developed a non-incineration thermal treatment technology for the processing of solid waste – including MSW, low and intermediate radioactive waste and medical waste. The technology, the Plasma Gasification Melting (PGMTM), is an updraft plasma-assisted gasification process. PGMTM converts the organic fraction of solid waste into a high-caloric synthesis gas (syngas). The inorganic fraction is vitrified to produce an environmentally benign slag which is suitable for use as a component in construction materials.
According to Mr Liran Dor, EER’s Chief Technology Officer, the core of the PGMTM technology was developed in Russia at the Kurchatov Institute for the treatment of low level radioactive waste. The PGMTM process has been used for more than two decades by the RADON Institute in Russia. The institute is responsible for the processing, storage and monitoring of all radioactive waste in the Moscow region.
Mr Moshe Stern, founder of EER, acquired the rights for world deployment of the PGMTM technology in the year 2000. In the first quarter of 2007 a demonstration PGMTM plant for the processing of MSW was constructed in northern Israel. The Israeli plant is a fully integrated industrial facility for waste treatment. The plant has all the basic elements needed by the PGMTM operation and includes the front end handling, a treatment zone power block and an air pollution control system.
The process starts with the waste being fed into a vertical shaft vessel through an airtight feeding chamber at the upper portion of the system. The waste then moves downward, passing through a drying zone where the moisture in the waste is evaporated. The putrescible (biodegradable) organics are converted into a pyrolysis gas, which forms the synthesis gas. In the gasification zone, oxidizing agents are introduced to gasify the carbonic residues of the pyrolysis, producing carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
Plasma torches in the bottom section of the vessel form an electric arc, which ionizes the air flowing through the torches to form a plasma jet that can reach up to 4000°C (7232°F). The plasma jet melts the inorganic fraction of the waste, forming the inert vitrified slag
The syngas may be utilized in a combined-cycle arrangement; the system has an electrical efficiency of about 40%-45% supplying the energy to run the plant with the excess (up to half of the generated amount) sold to the grid.
Approximately 1000 m3 of syngas are generated in the PGMTM from one ton (0.9 tonnes) of MSW. When compared with incineration, the PGMTM produces up to 70% less gas that needs to be cleaned and has 4–5 times less pollution contaminants.
EER recently signed a 25-year agreement with Gowing & Pursey (G&P), a London-based waste management company, to construct and operate a 30,000 ton (27,000 tonne) per year capacity PGMTM MSW plant in the UK. Additionally, EER is currently in the permitting stage for the construction of a medical waste processing plant in Houston, Texas.
For more info e-mail liran@eer-israel.co.il
Götaverken Miljö AB: Adiox® for dioxin removal in wet scrubbers and semi-wet or dry absorbers
Adiox® is a patented dioxin removal technology which provides a way to cut dioxin emissions to the atmosphere. Adiox® is a construction material in which carbon particles are dispersed in a polymer like polypropylene (PP). Several components such as tower packings, demisters (droplet separators) and dry fixed bed fillings can be produced from Adiox®.
Adiox® has been installed in 80 full-scale incineration lines since 2002. The gas flows range from 5000–186,000 m3/h (normal, wet gas). The first full-scale test installation was made at the MSWI plant in Thisted (Denmark) in 2001.
Adiox® enables the function of multifunctional wet scrubbers, where HCl, HF, SO2 and oxidised Hg as well as dioxins, can be removed simultaneously. Further energy recovery by condensation of the flue gas can be integrated in the scrubber as well.
Adiox® is particularly well suited to removing dioxins from gases during municipal waste incineration, hazardous waste incineration, and in the chemical, biomass and metal industries. To date, Adiox® has been installed in all these application fields, except for in the metal industry.
If Adiox® is employed in a dry absorber instead of a wet scrubber, the specific removal efficiency is higher, which leads to smaller equipment sizes. Since December 2006 a dry absorber has been in full operation at the Linköping municipal waste incineration plant serving three incineration lines with a total flue gas flow of 186 000 Nm3/h. The removal efficiency is > 99 %!
The system is static which makes it robust and reliable. It is also effective also during start-up and in unstable operating conditions. After use, Adiox® can be incinerated, thereby destroying the dioxins.
e-mail: per.lindgren@gmab.se or visit www.gmab.se
Martin GmbH: NOx emission issues
The limit levels for NOx emissions continue to decrease as a result of statutory or regulatory requirements. Martin has therefore developed various concepts, in co-operation with partner companies, in which the NOx values downstream of the WTE combustion system are already significantly reduced.
In a ‘conventional’ combustion system setting, the underfire air is set to be slightly over-stoichiometric and an excess air rate of approximately 1.8 is achieved by supplying overfire air for flue gas burnout. The NOx content is typically at 400 mg/Nm3. Moving the overfire air to the upper furnace area already results in a decrease of the NOx content to approximately 300 mg/Nm3. This process option, known as LN (Low NOx), is suitable for retrofitting existing plants. However, it can also be implemented in the design of new plants.
The process known as VLN (Very Low NOx) achieves a reduction in the levels of excess air and consequently higher temperatures in the lower area of the furnace, by means of internal flue gas recirculation. The internal flue gas recirculation system comprises the extraction of flue gas in the rear area of the combustion chamber and its subsequent use as mixing gas in the upper area of the furnace. This ensures optimal mixing of the flue gases.
It has been proven that NOx values below 250 mg/Nm3 are achieved with internal flue gas recirculation. These values are reduced to less than 80 mg/Nm3 by injecting ammonia or urea. A further feature of this process is that a low NH3 slip is adhered to at the same time. In addition, excess air is reduced, which has a positive effect on boiler efficiency and makes it possible for the size of downstream components to be reduced.
Both LN and VLN processes have been tested on an industrial scale over longer periods and are offered for new plants, and plant retrofits.
e-mail: mail@Martingmbh.de
Kema: Advanced corrosion sensors and online boiler wall inspection equipment
Kema has produced several types of corrosion sensors and boiler wall inspection techniques which have been able to provide answers to the problems associated with boiler tube degradation.
Kemcops® are simple corrosion probes fitted into the strips of the boiler. The probes are analysed by miscroscope, in order to assess degradation mechanisms at the site of the probe. The probes can be prepared with different metals or alloys thus making it possible to assess the effects of different material choices. The temperature that probes are subjected to can be adjusted.
Kemcom® is a high temperature online electrochemical corrosion monitor. With this device it is possible to measure corrosion in real time and it provides the option to compare the corrosion rate and process conditions. Kemcom® can be utilized in both the super heater section and the furnace section. Recently, two identical temperature-controlled Kemcom® probes were installed in a WTE plant to monitor corrosion behaviour during a program to optimize firing conditions. The corrosion probes were installed at different levels on the front and side walls of the first pass to map the corrosive conditions in relation to changes in process (firing) conditions.
Kembus® is an ultrasonic method used to measure wall thickness in the membrane wall section from the outside of the boiler during a plant stop. The boiler tube needs to be filled with water and isolation removed. The method is more accurate and saves time when compared to ultrasonic scan methods used on the inner side of the boiler. By using this method the fire-side wall thickness can be followed during operation.
The combination of the three methods gives real added value and leads to substantial insights into the corrosion behaviour in boilers.
For info visit: www.kema.com
Rheinbraun Brennstoff GmbH increases storage capacity for HOK rotary hearth furnace coke
Rheinbraun Brennstoff GmbH (RBB) has recently rented additional silo capacities totalling 1800 m3 from the firm Alfred Talke GmbH & Co. KG to ensure it can go on meeting the growing demand for activated lignite in the environmental area. The maximum storage capacity for the HOK activated lignite produced by RWE Power AG has risen to a total of 10,000 tons (9071 tonnes).
The tower silo system is located on the business premises of Talke, a logistics firm, in Huerth and comprises ten individual silos with a capacity of 150 or 200 m3 each. Four different activated carbon types are stored there, with grain sizes extending from granules to super-milled HOK Super.
This rotary hearth furnace coke derived from lignite, which is used in the capture of pollutants and is marketed worldwide by RBB under the brand name ‘Activated Lignite HOK’, has special properties that yield an adsorbent and catalyst which is in demand in environmental fields. Typical applications include waste-gas and waste-air cleaning in refuse incineration and the steel industry.
At RWE Power, activated lignite is produced using a specially designed applied pyrolysis and activation process which creates the special properties. The process, which has been optimized over decades, gives a low-priced bulk product at a high-quality level in compliance with DIN ISO 9002. With a capacity of 200,000 tonnes, RWE AG is the world’s largest producer of activated lignite.
In view of the rising demand from overseas, the Huerth location offers the best prerequisites: there, Talke operates a modern bulk thrower system designed to fill maritime containers. This speeds up packaging and loading on the spot and is a solution for the further transportation of HOK products.
For info visit: www.hok.de
Ramboll: WTE on the roll in Denmark
No new thermal treatment capacity has been established for the last eight years in Denmark. The country’s existing facilities have been optimized and existing capacity replaced, but new capacity has not been established. Earlier this year, an application from Kara/Noveren in Roskilde to extend its facility with a new 25 tonne-per-hour unit was approved by the Danish Energy Agency, and many will follow. The latest project is I/S Amagerforbrænding’s new WTE facility to be located in Copenhagen. Ramboll is the lead consultant to both Kara/Noveren and I/S Amagerforbrænding.
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Thomas Rand, Director of Ramboll Energy, says, ‘The waste-to-energy facility in Copenhagen is one of the largest facilities that can be expected in northern Europe within the next 10 years. We envisage many similar projects in the years to come, but none as big as this one.’ The capital investment will be some €400 million. ‘We have already started the initial planning of six other Danish waste-to-energy facilities, and we are well positioned for more of the coming projects,’ he adds. He says that, at the moment, Ramboll is involved in more than 35 WTE projects globally, including facilities in the UK, Canada and the US.
I/S Amagerforbrænding’s new facility is to replace the existing one, which has been operating since 1970. The annual capacity will be 560,000 tonnes of waste, which is approximately 15% of all residual waste in Denmark. The facility will be prepared for a 50% extension to accommodate future increases in waste input. It is expected to be commissioned in 2014–2015. Households numbering 140,000 will be supplied with electricity and heat from the facility, which will have an energy efficiency rate 20% higher than that of the existing facility.
‘Danish waste-to-energy facilities have become more and more efficient and now exploit up to 98% of the energy contained in the waste. In this way, residual waste that cannot be recycled in an economic or environmentally sound way becomes a valuable local source of energy. Additionally, alternative waste treatment processes are outperformed with respect to carbon footprint and other impacts on the environment,’ says Thomas Rand.
‘Due to our work at waste-to-energy facilities all over the world, we have the knowledge and experience required to ensure a state-of-the-art facility with high availability and performance,’ says Thomas Rand.
Please e-mail Thomas Rand at tr@ramboll.dk or call +45 4598 8610
Maxon: Introduces the Smartlink® Meter
As a result of continued product development in burner technology, Maxon has released the Smartlink® Meter, a gas mass flow meter designed and optimized for use in gas burner systems.
 The Maxon Smartlink Meter |
The new Smartlink® Meter is a self-checking gas flow meter using the thermal mass flow metering principle. This technology offers precise and repeatable measurement for gaseous fuels and air. One of the biggest advantages of this technology is that the output of the measurement is directly proportional to the mass flow. This means there is no need anymore to compensate for pressure or temperature fluctuations in the medium being measured.
The Smartlink® Meter displays instantaneous standard flow rate and total fuel consumption without the need for external signal calculations. It gives a 4-20 mA output signal, directly proportional to the mass flow. Several alarm functions can be set which alert the user whenever fuel consumption exceeds or drops below certain set points.
The meter provides highly accurate flow measurement – down to +/- 2% – over a wide turn down range – up to 20:1. This extraordinary turndown is important in applications where the gas consumption can fluctuate within a large range. This is typical for burners which are used in furnaces where high capacities are needed to heat up the furnace and low capacities are needed to keep the furnace, at its nominal working temperature. The Smartlink® Meter has an internal flow straightener which reduces the required straight pipe lengths before and after the meter.
A feature of the Smartlink® Meter is the 4–20 mA input port which enables electrical linkage of two meters. When linking a gas and an air flow meter, the meters can monitor, display, and output air/fuel ratios. This way there is a direct monitoring and safeguarding, with only one signal, of the excess air level of a burner. In multi-burner installations, two gas meters can be linked to compare gas consumption in different burners or burner zones.
Another unique feature is Smartlink® Meter’s patented technology which offers functional self-checking to ensure safe and reliable operation and a configurable alarm output. The meter is FM and CE approved and comes in a rugged IP66 design which enables it to be used in harsh environments.
The Maxon Smartlink® Meter will give customers the edge in monitoring fuel usage and ensuring efficiency. This new product in Maxon’s Smart range of products is yet another step in the development of precise and fuel efficient burner control systems.
The Smartlink® Meter is available for sale now. It can be used by anyone who wants to monitor their gas fuel consumption precisely when fine tuning thermal installations. Or it can be incorporated by thermal machine manufacturers who want to offer their customers an extra fuel usage monitoring tool.
Please visit: www.maxoncorp.com
