Giant Belgian Biomass Project Advances

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Construction on one of the biggest biomass power projects in the world is set to kick off in early 2016 at the Port of Ghent in Belgium.

Plant owner Belgian Eco Energy (BEE) has appointed French firm Veolia (Paris, France) to operate the Bee Power Gent plant for 15 years in a deal worth 150 million euros ($170 million). The plant, which is expected to be commissioned in 2018, will be capable of producing 215 megawatts (MW) of electricity from sustainable wood chips, along with 100 MW of thermal heat. It will be able to power approximately 450,000 homes--equivalent to 2% of Belgium's total electricity--as well as enough heat for up to 240,000 households.

Last year, Industrial Info reported that BEE had contracted Abengoa (NASDAQ:ABGB) (Seville, Spain) to build the $375.6 million plant at the Ghent Coal Terminal site on the Ghent-Terneuzen canal. For additional information, see November 10, 2014, article - Abengoa Building World's Largest Biomass Plant.

Abengoa will supply two biomass-fired high pressure boilers to drive condensing steam turbine generator sets.

The feedstock will be sourced mainly from the Atlantic basin, Western Africa and Northern and Southern Europe, while a small portion will be sourced from the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, BEE confirmed. The pellets and woodchips will be shipped to the project site via the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, while the wood dust will be conveyed by trucks. Feedstock storage facilities will include a 5,000-cubic-meter silo for the wood pellets, a 2,500-cubic-meter silo for the agro pellets and a 15,000-cubic-meter covered storage facility for woodchips.

Additional facilities at the project site will include a water treatment plant, a diesel-powered ancillary steam boiler and an emergency power supply system. The plant also will use either a standalone selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) system, or a combination of SCNR and SCR DeNOx systems, to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, and a bag filter to reduce dust emissions, according to BEE.

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