Germany-headed biogas plant operators and technology suppliers EnviTec Biogas AG has revealed that a groundbreaking ceremony has been held for a new biogas plant in the Province of Shanxi, China. Marking the construction start of its fifth installation in the country, the client is Shanxi Shenmu New Energy Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of state-owned Shanxi Coal & Chemical Industry Group Co. Ltd, one of China's largest corporations. Completion is scheduled at the end of 2018.
The Chinese New Year starts on February 16, 2018 – the Year of the Brown Earth Dog – which, according to the Chinese zodiac stands for “hard work and dependability”.
These are exactly the kinds of traits and abilities with which we are impressing clients in the Chinese market, commented Jörg Fischer, CFO of EnviTec Biogas AG.
Following Minhe I and II, Yingtan and Dingzhou, the recently held groundbreaking ceremony for a biogas plant in the province of Shanxi, 500 km southwest of Beijing, now marks the fifth biogas project in the People’s Republic of China for the German biogas “all-rounder”.
The customer – Shanxi Shenmu New Energy Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of state-owned Shanxi Coal & Chemical Industry Group Co. Ltd – is handling all construction works and will be responsible for operating the plant following its planned completion at the end of 2018.
We are naturally providing our customer with expertise, and supplying both project and construction supervisors and senior installation personnel who are organising the construction process and managing it on-site. We are supplying the main components of the input systems and biogas plant, while the customer is constructing the gas utilisation systems, said Fischer.
Growing Chinese bio-CNG market
Each of the six digesters used to generate biogas has a volume of 5 250 m3. Alongside two walking floors, a total of four biogas “Kreis-Dissolver” units are used to process the input materials, which include maize silage, turkey manure and dairy slurry.
Once commissioning is complete, the biogas produced will be compressed to bio-CNG, compressed natural gas, and sold locally from the plant premises. According to Fischer, CNG is very much a growth market in China.
Together with our sales partner, we now have four employees in China at the moment, busy handling a large number of enquiries, Fischer said.
One of these enquiries came from Shanxi Shenmu New Energy Co. Ltd. After initial contact at the Sino-German Biogas Conference, the customer visited the company’s flagship plant in Dingzhou.
At this site, the Visitor Centre, lab and central control room were designed and built to ensure that visitors can view the mixing line and technical systems via a glass-walled corridor and tunnel. In the near future, China will remain a huge source of potential revenue – although competition will become fiercer in what is now a growing market, explained Fischer.
