£135m London project offering twice the power from waste
Tuesday 21 April 2009
A consortium hoping to build a pioneering £135 million fuel cell gasification facility in London has had an indicative offer of funding from an undisclosed partner.
Waste2Tricity is looking at industrial sites around the capital for a facility that could generate more energy than one of London's big incinerators - but using half the waste.
The company told New Energy Focus last week that once the project is completed, the facility was expected to generate 60MW of power, exporting 45MW of electricity to the grid. With efficiency levels up to 60% - around twice that of standard combustion energy-from-waste plants, it would use an annual input of just 250,000 tonnes of waste.
Planning is an issue for everyone seeking to develop waste infrastructure, but here it's not incinerated and there's no emissions.
By comparison, the SELCHP incinerator in South-East London offers 29MW of power for the grid from 420,000 tonnes of waste a year, using the conventional "mass-burn" technology.
Waste2Tricity, a spin-off company from alkaline fuel cell pioneers AFC Energy, wants to use gasification technology to convert household, commercial or industrial waste into hydrogen, then use the hydrogen to generate power through fuel cells.
Gasification, a technology only beginning to catch the interest of the waste management industry in the UK, involves material being heated in highly controlled conditions to turn it into a "synthetic gas" (syngas), which is mainly hydrogen.
So far, projects using the technology either burn the syngas to create steam to drive a turbine, or use the gas in an internal combustion engine.
Waste2Tricity believes using fuel cells would radically improve the efficiency of turning the hydrogen into power, with a 60% better efficiency level than using a combustion engine 200% better than using a steam turbine system.
This would make the gasification process particularly attractive since double subsidies are available for plants under the government's Renewables Obligation scheme.
Partners
AFC Energy's 3.5kW prototype is to be expanded to a 50kW unit that would be stackable for use as multi-megawatt fuel cell power stations located next to industrial sources of hydrogen
Stage one would see a gasification plant set up to use hydrogen in a combustion engine to generate power, before the project switches to using fuel cells in stage two.
The two stage approach is being taken because the fuel cell technology has not yet reached mass production, with a prototype currently undergoing tests in the chemical industry (see this New Energy Focus story).
Howard White, executive consultant for the company said: "One of our partners is willing to put up the funding for stage one, the gasification plant. We're very excited for this project."
Next month is expected to see London's Waste and Recycling Board making a decision on its £37 million support fund for waste and recycling projects, to which Waste2Tricity has submitted an expression of interest.
It is hoping to secure assistance from the Board, which is run by the London boroughs and the Mayor.
Waste2Tricity is also hopeful of attracting the support of the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, who will have powers to back the project through the planning system.
Terry Walsh, a director at Waste2Tricity, told New Energy Focus: "Planning is an issue for everyone seeking to develop waste infrastructure, but here it's not incinerated and there's no emissions.
"Gasification is heating up the material in a sealed chamber - we have to clean up the gas because otherwise we can't put it through the fuel cells: for us, there's an incentive to keep all the gas, we're not venting it," Mr Walsh explained.
Waste industry
Waste2Tricity is also looking to roll its technology out to other parts of the UK, with the possibility of projects in areas like the West Midlands and Wales.
It is beginning to talk to other waste management and organics recycling partners about potential partnerships.
The alkaline fuel cell technology would particularly suit the waste management industry, since it operates at low temperatures and pressures without the need for overly complex engineering.
"This is a product that is going to make an enormous difference, it is the building block of the hydrogen economy," he said.
Although relatively bulky compared to other fuel cell technologies, Mr White said space was not a constraint in an industrial application, and that with the AFC technology you would fit a half-megawatt of capacity inside a standard 40-foot container.
Mr White said: "What we don't want is technology that is too fussy - we want something that is bog standard, plug and play - you want more capacity, just drop in another container. You don't even need a permanent building for a fuel cell power station."
Print
