Wärtsilä Delivers World's First BioPower Plant Using Brewery Spent Grain to Produce Electricity and Heat
HELSINKI, March 3/PRNewswire/ -- Wärtsilä has been awarded two contracts by Scottish and Newcastle (S&N), the major international brewing group, to supply and install equipment for two biomass-fuelled combined heat and power plants (CHP). The contracts are for two CHP plants to be located on the premises of the company's UK breweries in Manchester, for which the order was received in the end of 2007, and Tadcaster, for which the order was received in the beginning of 2008.
These Wärtsilä BioPower plants will be the first power plants in the world ever to produce, with high efficiency, both electricity and heat using spent grain as fuel. Spent grain is a by-product of the brewing process.
The Wärtsilä solution represents a major step towards sustainable energy self-suffiency for the brewing industry. At the same time, these BioPower plants will help the UK meet its target of having renewables power 10% of the country's electric supply by 2010.
The CHP plants will each have a thermal output of 7.4 MWth and an electrical output of 3.1 MWe. The plants, which will burn a mixture of spent grain and wood chips from local sources, are due to start operations in the first and second quarters of 2009, producing steam and electricity for the breweries' processes and exporting excess electricity to the local electricity network. S&N will earn Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC's) for its production of renewable electricity.
