Southern Boston Energy Performs Successful Test at Virginia Biomass
Plant Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC), Manassas, Va., and Novi Energy, Novi, Mich., have announced that the NOVEC Energy Production Halifax County Biomass (NEPHCB) plant, which also does business as South Boston Energy, generated its first electricity and connected to the regional electric transmission grid during testing on Sept. 11, 2013. The two companies have been working together on the project near South Boston, Va., and anticipate that precommercial operation testing and inspection of plant systems will continue for several more weeks.
The $170-million NEPHCB generation station will generate up to 49.9 megawatts of renewable electricity for NOVEC customers. It is located on a 104-acre site in the Halifax County Industrial Park in Southern Virginia. Novi Energy developed and is overseeing construction of the plant for plant owner NOVEC.
“We’ve been working on this project for three years,” says Mike Dailey, NOVEC vice president of energy and business development. “This successful synchronization with the power grid marks a major milestone in the development of the station and now sets the stage for commercial operation.”
The plant will use waste wood left over from logging operations in Southside Virginia as fuel. The wood fuel, chopped into small wood chips, will burn inside the boiler to create steam that will turn turbines and generate electricity.
“NOVI Energy had a vision that a waste-wood-fueled renewable power plant was possible in South Boston, and now it is a reality,” says Anand Gangadharan, president of Novi Energy. “This state-of-the-art facility will be a reliable power production asset for Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative.”
Gangadharan says the plant will use reclaimed water from the local water authority for plant cooling water. As a result, it will not discharge any water into the Dan River during normal operation. The plant will also recycle leftover wood ash.
Dailey notes that the project has helped the Southside Virginia economy by employing as many as 500 workers during construction. He said approximately 26 full-time employees are operating the plant during testing and will continue to run it once it goes into full operation.
WTE Revival Continues Worldwide
A report by Dublin, Ireland-based Research and Markets says that by 2017, as many as 180 new waste-to-energy (WTE) plants will be constructed around the world with a capacity of around 52 million annual tons.
The report, titled “Waste to Energy (Analyst version) – The World Market for Waste Incineration Plants 2013/2014,” says these 180 new facilities will join the nearly 2,200 existing WTE plants globally.
The existing plants have a disposal capacity of about 255 million tons of waste per year, according to Research and Markets.
The complete Waste to Energy 2013/2014 report “shows how WTE works, how to plan a WTE project and describes market shares and players among operators and plant manufacturers,” says Research and Markets.
The report analyzes established markets in Germany and Scandinavia as well as growing markets in China, Great Britain and Poland.
The complete version of the Waste to Energy 2013/2014 study includes:
- analysis of pros and cons, technology and costs of waste incineration, including political, economic, managerial and technical trends;
- a description of the current and future market volumes by countries, up to and including 2017;
- a project list with new construction, extension and renewal projects, of which more than 100 are under construction, almost 62 have been approved and more than 210 are being planned; and
- an analysis and description of global WTE plant operators and plant manufacturers, including market shares.
More information is available at www.researchandmarkets.com/ research/pqdfrp/waste_to_energy.
New Report Explores Gasification Technologies
A new report prepared for the American Chemistry Council (ACC), authored by Fairfax, Va.-based solid waste consulting firm, Gershman, Brickner & Bratton (GBB), evaluates how an emerging set of technologies that could potentially convert large-scale municipal solid waste into energy could fit into waste management planning in North America. The new technologies are known collectively as gasification because they first convert waste into a synthesis gas or syngas which can be used to create a range of energy and fuel products. The report, “Gasification of Non-Recycled Plastics from Municipal Solid Waste in the United States,” offers an overview of gasification technologies, feedstock flexibility, outputs and economics, licensing companies, opportunities and barriers to commercialization, and the potential role of gasification in integrated waste management systems.
Although full-scale commercial gasification facilities are not yet in place in the United States, interest is growing among policymakers and entrepreneurs because of the versatility of their energy outputs, which include steam, electricity, ethanol and diesel along with chemical intermediates, according to the report.
“Despite rapid increases in recycling in recent years, a significant amount of energy-rich waste still goes to landfill in this country,” says Harvey Gershman, GBB president. “Gasification is one of a growing number of exciting new technologies under development that may one day harness the potential of waste as an abundant source of domestic energy.”
According to the report, which was written with municipalities, investors and waste managers in mind, 21 demonstration facilities are being operated in the United States and another 17 commercial-scale facilities are under development. GBB’s consultants point out that energy-rich nonrecycled plastics are an attractive feedstock for gasification.
“Plastics are a valuable resource, and we need to recycle them whenever it makes sense to do so,” says Steve Russell, ACC vice president of plastics. “But not all plastics can be recycled in a way that’s economically and environmentally efficient. Emerging technologies that can convert waste into electricity, higher value fuels and chemicals can help us capture plastics’ high energy value and put it to work to help power communities across America.”