THE AMER DEMOLITION WOOD GASIFICATION PROJECT

The fact that an electricity producing company like EPZ starts activities in the field of processing so-called secondary fuels (especially biomass) is a result of the combination of several factors: • disposal of wastes with a certain heating value is being forbidden now or in the near future. • Governments and communities ask for the reduction of CO2 emissions and translate that wish into financial mechanisms like tax credits, special tariffs etc. • modern coal fired power stations have a great potential in accepting fuels with very diverging qualities and converting them in a very clean manner. In one case, for EPZ this combination of factors led to a project in which low quality demolition wood, which cannot be recycled to the chip board industry, will be gasified. The product gas will be cooled, dedusted, washed and subsequently burnt in the boiler of the coal fired co-generation unit Amer 9. This unit has a net production capacity of 600 MWe and 350 MWth heat. The unit has stringent emission limits for S02 and NO, and produces a certified fly ash. This means that it is very important to avoid any negative effects of the wood gas on emissions and rest products of the unit. Based upon the above starting points and boundary conditions a project has been specified with the following key figures: • waste wood input 150,000 t!a • coal input saving of 70,000 t!a • CO2 emission reduction of 170,000 t!a • electric efficiency over 35%.