In the Estonian capital Tallinn, more city buses can run on domestically produced bioCNG thanks to a capacity expansion by compatriot energy company Bioforce OÜ, using Bright biogas upgrading technology from Dutch providers HoSt.
BioCNG production capacity at the Aravete biogas facility has been operational since March 2022 and has recently been expanded from 800 Nm3 per hour of incoming biogas to 1 000 Nm3/hr by adding additional membranes to the biogas upgrading unit.
Capacity expansion to 1 200 Nm3/hr of incoming biogas is scheduled in the near future.
A new bioCNG production facility will be built at the Ebavere biogas facility and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2023.
Project Ebavere will be capable of upgrading 800 Nm3/hr biogas and is expandable to 1 200 Nm3/hr.
BioCNG is one of the great usages of biomethane that can be relocated anywhere. With our local team in Latvia and the team in the Netherlands, we are proud to be the technology provider to Bioforce for the realization of domestic production and usage of biomethane, commented Martins Dombrovskis, Area Sales Manager at Bright.
Virtual bioCNG pipeline
Bioforce supplies bioCNG to Aktsiaselts Tallinna Linnatransport (TLT), a company owned by the city of Tallinn, and that have committed to the utilization of clean fuels in Estonia.
The transport sector has a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One way to make the Estonian transport sector more sustainable is to use renewable natural gas. We are strongly committed to driving this cleaner future for this sector in Estonia and are happy to take up this challenge with Bright to achieve this goal, said Henry Uljas, CEO of Bioforce.
In both these projects, biogas is produced from the anaerobic digestion (AD) of cow manure.
This biogas needs to be cleaned, upgraded into biomethane aka renewable natural gas (RNG), and compressed into bioCNG.
Bright supplies the biogas upgrading system with a membrane technology to upgrade biogas to biomethane.
After compression to bioCNG, the fuel can be stored and transported. Through a virtual pipeline, the bioCNG is transported to the Peterburi street CNG filling station in Tallinn.
A virtual pipeline is a technology used at production sites where no pipeline, grid infrastructure, or filling station is available.
