Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) has announced that it is to build Scandinavia’s second Kompogas facility in Jönköping, Sweden. It will use a dry fermentation process to convert around 40 000 tonnes of organic waste a year into fuel for buses and cars, and high-grade fertilizers. The new installation will replace an existing wet fermentation facility, assuring the future of organic waste treatment, renewable fuel production, and jobs in the region.
According to a statement, the municipal energy utility Jönköping Energi AB has approved the sale of the existing wet fermentation facility (JEBIO1) to the Switzerland-headed biogas and waste to energy technology provider Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI) and its local partner and enabler JES & Partners AB. This will enable HZI to design, finance, build, and operate a new Kompogas dry fermentation plant (JEBIO2) in the south of the city.
We’re happy to have come up with this solution. HZI will continue to ensure the sustainable treatment of local household kitchen and green waste, produce renewable fuel, and at the same time secure local jobs, explained Fridolf Eskilsson, Director and Managing Director of Jönköping Energi AB, the current owner of JEBIO1.
Helping achieve carbon neutrality
The Jönköping project marks already the second Kompogas plant in Sweden – the first for E.ON Biofor Sverige in Högbytorp, north of Stockholm is due to begin operations later this year.
Sweden leads the world in terms of its efforts to establish a carbon-neutral economy. We are proud to be the supplier of the first-class Kompogas Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and BioMethan upgrading technologies that literally enable the regional public transport system to be run on kitchen and green waste. This plant will serve as a fine example of our company’s contribution to a carbon-free economy, said Andres Kronenberg, Head of Business Development and Member of the Executive Board at HZI.
In the future, two Kompogas steel digesters will process up to 40 000 tonnes of organic waste annually to produce biogas, which will be upgraded and compressed to a renewable transport fuel.
Unlike the existing wet AD plant, in the dry fermentation process, one of the key products is compost, a valuable soil conditioner. As no additional water is introduced into the process, the liquid fertilizer produced from dewatered digestate is also much richer in nutrients, said Lukas Heer, HZI’s Project Development Manager, underscoring the benefits of the Kompogas technology.
Local business benefits
The compost will be passed back to the municipality of Jönköping for its own use, while the liquid fertilizer will be sold to local farmers. The 35 GWh of biogas produced every year will be upgraded into high-grade biomethane and sold in the form of compressed biomethane gas (bioCNG) as a carbon-neutral vehicle fuel locally.
HZI will take charge of operating JEBIO1 at the end of 2018 until the start-up of JEBIO2 by the end of 2020. Following that, the old installation will be dismantled.
