1 October 2009

Global perspectives: Poland eyes 2,000 biogas plants

By Cris Whetton

The Polish Ministry of the Economy has proposed a draft of the project “Innovative Power Industry – Power-Generating Agriculture.”

The project’s goal is to create 2,000 anaerobic digester plants, each generating biogas with the energy of 1 MW, by 2020. The capacity limit comes from the allowed quantity of agricultural biological matter they can use to produce electrical power without impairing the country’s food supply. Rafal Baniak, Deputy Minister of the Economy, said each plant should produce “5 billion cubic of biogas equal in parameters to natural gas.”

Meanwhile, Netherlands-based Imtech, a technical services provider in Europe, is playing an increasingly active role in the Spanish energy market. Imtech just received $29.2 million (€20 million) in orders. The company gained orders from Acciona Infraestructuras for part of the mechanical solutions at two solar plants belonging to Acciona Energy in Palma del Rio, Córdoba, said René van der Bruggen, Imtech chief executive. The project will generate 50 MW of solar energy at the 260-hectare site. Similar work is also going on at Acciona Energy’s solar power plant in Risca, Alvarado (Badajoz). Moreover, Imtech is providing the total mechanical technology for Isolux Ingenieria at a biodiesel plant in Castellón de la Plana. Technical solutions are also in the works for a combined biogas/biomethanol plant at Valdemingómez’s Technological Park in Madrid, which produces 34 million m³ of biogas and high quality bio-methanol from organic waste.

In Finland, the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK), a farmers and landowners organization, is looking into the possibility of using crops for energy production as the price of grain plummeted. Complicating matters, this year’s grain harvest should be exceptionally good, and yet there is still unsold produce from last year. MTK President Juha Marttila believes there will be interest in buying crops, especially because those power plants that use wood chips have had problems securing their supply of raw material with the standstill in the timber trade. Furthermore, thousands of metric tons of low quality crops burn each year. Cereals Secretary Max Schulman of MTK thinks selling crops as fuel is a good alternative: “For the farmers this produces cost savings, as the burned crops do not have to be dried first.”

With the placement of the 560,000th solar panel by German Infrastructure Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee and Brandenburg Minister President Matthias Platzeck, the Lieberose solar farm, under construction at Turnow-Preilack, near Cottbus, in Brandenburg state, became the world’s second largest solar power plant and Germany’s biggest. The project is a joint venture between juwi Group, based in Wörrstädt, in Rheinland-Pfalz, and U.S.-based First Solar Inc. Despite the current economic and financial crisis, the two companies are building a utility-scale project with a total investment of more than $233.5 million (€160 million). With an output of about 53 MW and an area of 162 hectares, it is the second-largest photovoltaic (PV) installation in the world.

Cris Whetton is InTech’s European correspondent.