In France, energy utility major Dalkia, part of the EDF Group is in charge of a large-scale expansion of the district heat network in the city of Rouen. Denmark-based biomass gasification technology developers Dall Energy ApS was selected to design and engineer a biomass furnace and boiler for a new baseload heat plant.
An error occurred
On your profile you can see what subscriptions you have access to and more information.
Is some of the information wrong – please contact our customer service.
Please reload the page
Do you want to read the whole article?
- Six editions per year
- Full access to all digital content
- The E-magazine Bioenergy international
- And more ...
Part of this upgrade includes the installation of a new renewable heat generation capacity. The new heating plant is based on gasification technology in order to comply with the city’s requirement for reducing its environmental footprint for non-ETS sectors – sectors not quota regulated via the EU Emissions Trading System.
Ability to respond
A key criterion for the plant, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement no. 811529, was the ability to supply up to 17 MW of heat to the network and run for more than 7 000 operation hours per annum.
A seemingly straightforward demand, however, the constraint is that the district heat network has no buffer tanks for hot water storage. Thus the new heat plant needs to be able to respond and adjust accordingly to fluctuating daily heat demands on the network.
Furthermore, the plant needed to be designed to operate on locally sourced biomass of various qualities.
Construction underway
The fifth biomass gasification plant project for Dall Energy, the Rouen plant will be the largest of its kind to date. The company has previously built and commissioned three biomass gasification plants in Denmark and one in the United States in the 2 to 9 MWth range.
According to Jens Dall Bentzen, Founder, and CEO of Dall Energy, the furnace design started in Q4 of 2018 under a pre-engineering agreement.
As of March 2019 the design, procurement, and construction are ongoing according to the project time schedule.
The scope of Dall Energy comprises a biomass gasification furnace and hot water boiler including all associated auxiliary equipment such as fans, piping, switchboards, fuel feeding system, and ash handling system.
Dall Energy is also responsible for turnkey delivery of the equipment including design, procurement, installation, and commissioning.
Fivefold increase by 2030
According to Dalkia, four million people, or 6 percent of the French population are already connected to heating networks.
Furthermore, the French 2015 Energy Transition for Green Growth Act – Transition énergétique pour la croissance verte (LTECY) aims to achieve a fivefold increase in the amount of renewable and recovered energy delivered through these networks by 2030.
This would take the number of housing units connected to heating networks from two million today to more than eight million by 2030. Currently operating around 350 heating and cooling networks in France, district heating is an area where Dalkia already has a strong position.
In addition, the company is a leading operator of biomass-fired energy plants in France. Biomass represents nearly half of Dalkia’s renewable energy production in France, accounting for 17 percent of the overall energy mix.
