Industry
News
Linde Energi Installs Thermal
Energy Storage
Lindesberg Thermal Energy Storage Tank
The companies’ collaboration has
already helped decrease carbon dioxide
emissions by slightly more than 300,000
tonnes. The new tank is expected to further
reduce the system’s CO2 emissions by 1,100
tonnes per year. The total project cost was
20 million Swedish crowns ($2.7 million).
EPA Honors Three
Universities
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has recognized three universities with its 2010 ENERGY STAR®
CHP Awards: the University of Missouri-Columbia; the University of California,
San Diego; and Fairfield University,
Fairfield, Conn.
The University of Missouri, which
received its award at IDEA’s 101st Annual
Conference in Indianapolis in June, has
produced energy using CHP in one form
or another for its Columbia campus since
1892. Its current CHP system produces up
to 66 MW of electricity and more than 1. 1
MMlb/hr of steam to supply 13 million sq ft
of campus facilities. The system has an operating efficiency of approximately 76 percent.
The University of California, San Diego
began operating a natural gas-fired CHP
system in 2001. With two Solar Turbines
combustion turbines at its core and otherwise wasted heat recovered for use, the system generates nearly 30 MW of electricity
and produces 140 MMBtu/hr of steam that
meets 95 percent of campus thermal needs.
The system has impressively low nitrogen
oxide emissions levels and an operating efficiency of approximately 66 percent.
Fairfield University began operating a
CHP system in 2007, generating nearly 95
percent of the power needed by the campus
and up to 66 percent of its high-temperature
hot water heating and cooling supply. The
recovery and utilization of otherwise wasted
heat from the 4. 6 MW Solar Turbines unit
has led to estimated annual savings of
$2.2 million. The system has an operating
efficiency of approximately 55 percent.
Denmark’s First District
Cooling System
Copenhagen Energy inaugurated
Denmark’s first district cooling system June
10. Located in Copenhagen’s central business district, the system is the first step in
bringing district cooling to the country’s
capital. The next system will be located
near City Hall and should be ready for
operation in 2012-2013. Copenhagen
Energy is planning a total of seven district
cooling projects in the city, which, if they
are all realized, will eliminate up to 30,000
tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per
year, equivalent to the total CO2 emissions
from a small provincial town.
Heating Up China: Sino-
Icelandic Partnership Formed
A framework agreement was signed
in June between Sinopec Star Petroleum
Co. and Iceland’s Geysir Green Energy/
Enex Kina (China) to establish a joint
venture: Sino-Icelandic Green Energy
Geothermal Development Corp. The aim
of this new company is to develop broader
use of geothermal district heating nation-
wide in China and promote further development of the renewable energy sector.
Enex China, a Geysir Green Energy
subsidiary, has built, owns and operates
two geothermal district heating projects
in Shaanxi and Hebei province in another
joint venture with Sinopec Star. Those
systems, which serve Xianyang city and
Baoding city, will be enlarged from their
current installed peak-load capacity of 140
MWth. Their heating area currently covers
more than 32 million sq ft with more than
20 wells and 12 heat exchange stations.
Mizzou to Install
Biomass Boiler
Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation
Group Inc. (B&W PGG) has signed a contract to replace a coal-fired boiler on the
University of Missouri-Columbia campus
with a boiler that will generate steam and
electricity from biomass fuel. B&W PGG is
a subsidiary of The Babcock & Wilcox Co.
B&W PGG will design, engineer and
supply a 150,000-lb/hr bubbling fluidized
bed boiler designed to burn chipped hardwoods and various local opportunity fuels
near the university campus. The new boiler
will be retrofit within the university physical
plant’s existing structure. The physical plant
provides the university campus with electricity and steam for heating and other uses.
Mizzou’s decision to use wood and
wood waste as fuel also will result in lower
sulfur dioxide emissions and less ash for
disposal than a typical coal-fired plant.
Engineering work is under way at B&W
PGG’s Barberton, Ohio, headquarters. Boiler
delivery is scheduled for summer 2011.
The university’s biomass use is receiving support from the Mizzou Advantage
initiative, a program fostering interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty to address
current energy needs as well as to predict
and solve future energy problems. As part
of the program, Department of Forestry
researchers are studying how to establish,
maintain and understand the economic
feasibility of bioenergy plantations to provide wood, grass and other biomass for the
campus’s new biomass boiler.
