Metso to supply new German biomass power plant

Zwickau, Germany – Metso has won a Euro20-million order to supply Heizkraftwerk Zwickau Süd GmbH & Co. KG with a modularised biomass power plant for combined heat and power production (CHP) in the municipality of Zwickau.

The CHP plant will be delivered by the Metso-Wärtsilä joint venture MW Power. The delivery encompasses the complete turn-key solution including not only the entire plant but also all on-site installations and training.

The plant will connect to the grid in late 2012. Forest residues and wood based landscaping (Landschaftspflege) material will be used for fuelling. When in operation, the plant will produce a maximum of 10 megawatts (MWth) of district heat for the Zwickau municipality area and a maximum of 5 MW of electricity for the power grid.

“Through this investment, we will not only secure the production of district heat for our town but will also reduce our dependence on ever rising oil and gas prices. We are also very optimistic that the price paid for the district heat can be lowered from today’s level”, says Volker Schneider, MD of ZEVGmbH.

The plant’s commercial viability is supported by the German Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG), a law that provides fixed feed-in tariffs for electricity produced from renewable sources and secures the payback period of the investment. The project has a significant impact on the local economy through the use of local labor and subcontractor network.

This will be the eighth delivery of a such complete modularized CHP plant to Germany by MW Power. “The new project gains all benefits of modular design and standardization”, says Olli Taimisto, Sales Director for Biopower plants. ”Our easily tailored modularized products and our on-time deliveries reduce project risks to minimum and the customer can accurately calculate profitability of the project. Our local service organization will support the client duringcommercial operation of the plant.  These were amongst things that secured the deal for us,” Olli Taimisto says.

MW Power’s biomass-fuelled Biopower plants are based on standardised components that can be delivered and installed quickly. The modular plants are also highly automated, enabling unmanned 24/7 operation.

The Biopower plants incorporate either patented BioGrate or BFB combustion technology, both designed for efficient combustion of moist wood fuels, such as forest residues with high combustion efficiency and low NOx and CO2 emissions.

Besides Germany, Biopower plants are in operation in Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Czech Rep, Belarus and Ireland.