With a growing emphasis on reducing carbon emissions, driven by EU targets, attention has been turning in recent years to renewable energy resources, including biomass.
There are several problems with the existing biomass solutions: cost, efficiency and the concern that although biomass is renewable, it shares many of the same characteristics with fossil fuels when it comes to water use and emissions in its creation. Large scale plants are also required to process the material and turn it into usable material for biomass.
But new technology could be about to change that. Active Energy Pelleting, a division of UK-based Active Energy Group, has unveiled its new biomass fuel granule technology, which it says will address some of the key issues facing the industry.
"The problem you have in the industry today is they've got very inefficient, and they create huge emissions to produce a reduction in emissions. We counter both of those," according to chief executive Richard Spinks. It converts by-products from industry and agriculture into biomass fuel granules that can be used in micro-CHP (combined heat and power) boilers for both residential and commercial customers, along with large scale electricity power plants. The by-products can be anything from sawdust and wood chip to straw and sewage.
The technology behind the granulating solution was developed by two British researchers, John Gilbert and John Webster, in partnership with Queen's University. AEG now licenses the technology on an exclusive global basis, which will allow it to commercialise the technology, and roll it out internationally. Long process It was a 12-year process to develop the technology, and AEG was on the lookout for a number of years for a technology it felt was suitable. Two years ago, Mr Spinks says, he met with Mr Webster and Mr Gilbert.
“It’s taken a long time but it had to be the right time, and I think now is the right time,” he said. “There’s a lobby to say biomass should be local; the fact of the matter is it can’t be done locally without this kind of technology. We haven’t found another technology globally – and I’ve looked for four years – that can match it in any way. The fact that it came from Belfast is even better.”
The unique selling point? Not only is the solution mobile, but the company claims that due to the process it uses, the technology is more environmentally friendly than other methods of producing biomass fuel, because it doesn’t require large amounts of gas or electricity to dry the material, therefore reducing emissions, and ultimately costs. “It’s very exciting. It has global connotations from a Belfast start-up,” says Spinks.
“This technology is mobile, it’s on big trailers and gets pulled by a truck. It can do significantly higher volumes of production than even a huge stationary plant. It has no heating requirement to dry the material – it’s all part of our process, we need it wet.
“We are actually the perfect biomass solution because most of these companies spend about 40 to 50 per cent of the cost of making biomass in drying it before they can make it into a pellet. We wet it, we don’t spend anything on gas, we don’t create any emissions in producing the product.”
Rather than spend millions investing in stationary plants that are located in remote areas and require material to be shipped to them, the AEG solution can be brought to sawmills and waste piles, eliminating the cost of shipping the raw material.
"We were looking for a mobile solution so that we could go to waste piles or sawmills around Europe, on wheels. We could go there, and when there was no more there, we could move to the next one. We'd move pellets and not hundreds of thousands of very cheap, bulky sawdust around the continent or the world," says Spinks.
Instead of spending 350 to 450 kwh to make one tonne of pellets to burn to make electricity – a situation he describes as “nonsense” – the AEG system uses one kwh per tonne. That equates to less than the average washing machine.
“When people see this, they’re going to say this is what everyone should be doing. We can produce a better product, with more potential energy in it, that burns cleaner and better than any other product with virtually no emissions whatsoever, because we burn very hot.”
AEG already has considerable expertise in this field. The company has a target of producing 600,000 tonnes of deliveries this year, which Mr Spinks says is a big number for biomass. That has grown from zero in the past two years, which indicates the speed at which biomass is gathering pace.
“We’re one of the largest biomass producers and shippers in Europe now,” he says.
And not only was the technology developed in Northern Ireland, but AEG has also located its new research and development facility in Carrickfergus, which means it will be contributing to the local economy.
The company expects the new technology to be a lucrative business, with biomass already supplying about 10 per cent of the global primary energy requirement, and the potential to satisfy a large proportion of the world’s energy demands in the future.
Backing that drive in Europe is the EU, which is promoting biomass as a way to reduce fossil fuel emissions under its EU 2050 Energy Roadmap.
