Finning Power Systems
has also been central in
the U.K. biogas industry
and one of its more recent projects is a combined heat and power/
biogas station at Thames
Water’s Long Reach
Sewage Treatment
Works in Dartford, Kent.
The power station uses
methane gas to produce
2. 3 MW of “green” electricity, enabling the site
to be self-powered.
While the engines’ electricity will be
sold to the local grid, a separate, specially designed heat recovery system
will deliver the engines’ thermal output
to an adjacent fertilizer production
facility on the farmland.
Each biogas plant has a maximum
electrical output of 500 k W. Therefore,
the projects qualify under Germany’s
Renewable Energy Law (EEG) for “
feed-in” tariffs and “CHP bonus incentives”
for fully utilizing the engines’ heat.
Under EEG, biogas plants are guaranteed a minimum price for supplying
electricity for a period of 20 years.
Finning Power Systems, the U.K.
Caterpillar dealership, has also been
central in the U.K. biogas industry, and
one of its more recent projects is a combined heat and power/biogas station at
Thames Water’s Long Reach Sewage
Treatment Works in Dartford, Kent.
The power station uses methane gas to
produce 2. 3 MW of “green” electricity,
enabling the site to be self-powered.
The US$5.9 million project was
financed, designed, built and commissioned by Finning’s Electrical Power
Generation team who specified two Cat
G3516 biogas specification generator
sets, a Cat D3516B diesel standby generator, a Cat GEP275 diesel auxiliary
generator and a LIMA control system to
enable remote engine monitoring.
The company said that two G3516
biogas-fueled generator sets are both
fully hardened for running on aggressive
biogas, generating 2. 3 MW of green
energy, and use heat recovery equipment
to support the site digestion system.
Finning was also involved with a
landfill site on a former open cast mine
in Cannock, Staffordshire, England,
where — although a power generation
plant existed— surplus gas meant that
further units were needed to ensure
continuous power.
Three Caterpillar G3516LE generator
sets were initially installed, each capable
of burning various qualities of gas to
produce 1. 15 MW of power each.
Subsequently, due to increased gas production two Caterpillar G3520C high
efficiency biogas generators were
installed at the site, each producing an
additional 2 MW of electricity.
In addition to producing electricity,
hot water from the engines’ cooling jacket is used to heat the leachate lagoon to
speed the biological activity, which hastens the breakdown of the leachate —
the liquid produced when water percolates through a permeable material.
A separate and significant concern at
the site was silicon in the gas — which
is a result of the deterioration of domestic products including plastic bags —
that can be particularly aggressive. A
