153609
| Purchaser | SIEMENS Erlangen |
| Customer | DONG-Energy |
| Services |
Basic- and Detailengineering: Dezentralized signal recording and process control S7-400 Switchboard manufacturing: Decentralized signal recording with ET200M and DP/PA (21 stainless steel wall cabinets) Automation equipment (3 floor-standing cabinets) Process control (5 server cabinets) |
| Implementation | March - June 2009 |
Bioethanol is the environmentally-friendly fuel of the future. Nowadays, bioethanol is produced from grain and sugar, but the next-generation technology will rely e.g. on plants instead of foodstuffs.
Christian Morgen, the project manager, and his colleagues have found the solution for this problem – straw. “We use the excess heat from the power station in order to cook straw fibers. Then, we add enzymes which convert the straw into sugar mass. Last, we add yeast to obtain alcohol, like in a brewery”, says Christian Morgen.
As a result of these efforts, three products were created: bioethanol that can be used as the fuel in cars, lignin that can be as the fuel in power stations (it burns better than straw which may also cause deposits in the boilers), and dark and sugar-containing molasses that are suitable to feed livestock. At a later stage, improved technologies will allow converting also such molasses into bioethanol. In their Skærbæk power station, DONG Energy is running a testing facility, and they will have installed a demonstration facility in their Asnæs power station in Kalundborg by the end of 2009.
Although this project represents a significant technical breakthrough, the biggest challenge was of a practical and not of a technical nature: to break down the straw fibers.
“If the cooker is set very sensitively it may get blocked, and then suddenly the straw lies around everywhere. Strange things can happen when you run large scale testing programs”, says Christian Morgenstern who makes no secret of the fact that now and then during the project process it seemed to him that two steps forward were followed by one step backward.
“Colleagues from the industry visited us and said that this would never work, but it has worked, nevertheless. When we attend international conferences we see that we are well in the forefront compared to others in the bioethanol segment. It is great fun to impress experts, and now people from all over the world are coming to see our facility”, says Christian Morgen.
