World's most efficient CHP station uses biomass (and replaces coal - Denmark)

[jpak]

http://www.checkbiotech.org/green_News_Biofuels.aspx?infoId=16880

Biopact) - In September 1994, Denmark's Energy Agency approved plans for the construction of a highly efficient combined heat and power (CHP) plant, to be built by Energi E2 and Vattenfall. The 570MW Avedore 2 plant, situated on the coast just south of Copenhagen, was approved on the condition that its owner, SK Power, decommission three older coal-fired power plants to reduce net emissions of CO2 (10%), NOx (20%) and SO2 (30%).

Avedore 2 was unique in its design because it was conceived as a multi-fuel plant from the start, capable of using natural gas, coal and biomass. In 1996, Denmark's government banned the use of coal. And so Avedore proved to be a safe bet, by switching entirely to biomass and gas. Today, renewable biomass is the plant's main fuel.

Flexibility and efficiency

The switch was helped by a spike in natural gas prices in the late 1990s. Originally, gas was expected to contribute 85% of Avedore 2's total fuel consumption in the main boiler. Rocketing gas prices favored biofuels, so in early 2001 biomass was decided upon for the main fuel source.

Avedore 2, inaugurated in 2002, made the green switch successfully and is now a set of superlatives: it is the world's largest biomass power plant as well as the cleanest and most efficient cogeneration power station. It meets the heating demands of 200,000 households and supplies electricity to over 1.3 million homes (Denmark has a population of 5.47 million). The green plant covers more than 20% of Eastern Denmark's needs - the most densely populated region of the country - and supplies 570MW of heat to Greater Copenhagen's district heating system. The combined heat and power efficiency comes in at a whopping 95%.

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