Wärtsilä Biopower Oy has been awarded a turnkey contract to supply a biomass-fuelled combined heat and power plant to BioTherm Baden GmbH & Co KG, Germany. The new plant will be located in the industrial park of Baden-Airpark, near Baden-Baden. It will have an electrical power output of up to 5.2 MWe, and a thermal output of up to 3.5 MWth for district heating.
The plant will be installed and commissioned during 2005 with commercial operation starting in 2006. It will be operated by Stadtwerke Baden-Baden which is a public utility for the town, and is responsible in the Baden Airpark for the networks delivering natural gas, water, heating and telecommunications.
The turnkey contract with Wärtsilä excludes civil works. The plant will comprise a Wärtsilä BioPower 5 CEX plant and will burn wood residues from the local forestry industry. With its high level of automation, the plant will be run unmanned with periodical supervision visits to the plant. Typically operators will visit the plant every working day, leaving it without personnel at the weekend.
Wärtsilä’s biomass-fuelled plants are clean and efficient. They are practical solutions for meeting needs for renewable energy supplies with minimum environmental impact. They incorporate patented Wärtsilä BioGrate combustion technology to burn biomass fuels with high combustion efficiency and low NOx and CO emissions. The moisture content of the fuel can be as high as 65%. The SOx emissions of such wood-fuelled plants are negligible. The fly ash is removed from the flue gases in an electrostatic filter.
The BioPower plant operates on a closed steam-feed water system separate from the district heating water system. Superheated steam is generated in an efficient water-tube boiler, and supplied to a high-efficiency reaction-type condensing steam turbine driving an alternator. The district heating water is heated by steam extracted from the turbine.
BioPower plants are highly modular, being based on well-proven standardised components with a conservative design approach. The plants can thus be delivered and installed quickly. Their proven technology results in a reliable, durable plant. They are also highly automated, enabling unmanned operation.