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Swiss Power-to-Gas project scoops Watt d’Or Award

Swiss Power-to-Gas project scoops Watt d’Or Award
The 2023 Watt d'Or Award energy technology category winner, Limeco (photo courtesy Bundesamt für Energie).

In Switzerland, a power-to-gas plant featuring technology from Swiss-Japanese cleantech major Hitachi Zosen Inova AG  (HZI) and operated by Limmat Valley utility Limeco has been awarded the Watt d’Or 2023 in the energy technology category.

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This prestigious Swiss energy award is presented every year by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE). At the Watt d’Or award ceremony held in mid-January in Bern, HZI’s technology also received this seal of energy excellence.

The hallmarks of the lighthouse project on a site shared with an energy-from-waste facility and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) are highly efficient resource utilization and a groundbreaking combination of technologies for producing renewable energy.

A core component of the plant in Dietikon is a methanation reactor from Hitachi Zosen Inova Schmack (HZI Schmack) in which hydrogen reacts with the carbon dioxide (CO2) it contains while biogenic digester gas is fed.

This produces green synthetic methane.

Third award for HZI Schmack technology

The Limeco project is the first in Europe to produce a natural gas substitute on an industrial scale on the basis of HZI Schmack’s biological methanation process BiON, and it is making a pioneering contribution to the transformation of the Swiss energy system.

HZI Schmack, based in Schwandorf in Bavaria, Germany is a specialist in fermentative biogas production and methanogenesis (biomethanation).

The company emerged just over a year ago from the integration of Schmack Biogas Service and microbEnergy, two traditional brands that had developed biological methanation to market maturity.

The Watt d’Or was therefore also a recognition of the German HZI company’s achievements as a technology developer and the outstanding commitment of the project group, which included Dr Doris Schmack, Head of R&D Biological Processes at HZI Schmack.

Following the Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille and the German gas industry’s special award, this is the third major award for our biological methanation technology. It underscores our commitment to this key technology as one of the components of the transformed energy supply system of the future, Dr Doris Schmack said.

This technology makes a valuable contribution to the decarbonization of the economy. This award doesn’t just recognize the pioneering spirit of our client, but also the performance of the plant. The natural gas substitute produced can save around 5 000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year – the amount generated by around 2 000 households, commented Manuel Götz, CEO of HZI Schmack.

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