Natural gas from biomass plant a "world first"

Lyngby, Denmark – Danish group Topsoe is to help design of the world’s first plant for producing substitute natural gas (SNG) from biomass. The complete process includes biomass gasification, tar scrubbing, gas conditioning and methanation, resulting in a green gas for the gas grid. Topsoe will contribute with the gas conditioning and methanation technologies.

The plant will be the first of its kind when on stream by the end of 2012 and it will be a flagship for a number of similar projects in Europe and the rest of the world, according to Roberta Cenni, business development manager at Topsoe’s technology division.

“Completely in line with Topsoe’s commitment to sustainable energy technology, the plant is fully based on biomass. We are happy to supply our TREMP technology for this important project which will be the first of its kind, demonstrating the sustainability of wood to SNG,”

The plant will produce SNG from gasified wood. The SNG will be fed into the existing gas grid, thus supplying a considerable amount of green gas for the Gothenburg area.

“The heat released by the process is recovered as superheated steam and hot water. The hot water will be exported as district heating water, making the overall energy efficiency of the system extremely high,” says Troels Stummann, Project Manager Topsoe’s technology division.

On the Swedish side, the project is owned by the GoBiGas (Gothenburg Biomass Gasification) (GoBigas) consortium, with main owner Göteborg Energi AB. The plant will be placed adjacent to the Rya District Heating Plant in Gothenburg.

“This is an important milestone in the project and our work will aim at having the plant in operation in late 2012”, says Åsa Burman, project manager and managing director for GoBiGas.