Dong to Invest $795 Million in Fossil-to-Biomass Conversions, Further Denmark's Renewable Goals

Meg Cichon, Associate Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com
April 11, 2012 | 19 Comments

Denmark has long been a renewables pioneer, and it furthered its reputation with the announcement of a bold plan: It will produce one third of its power from renewable sources by the end of the decade and 100 percent by 2050. With full government support, Denmark hopes to avoid future energy price fluctuations.

"No matter what we do, we will have an increase in the price of energy, simply because people in India and China want to have a car, want to travel," said Lykke Friis of the Danish Liberal Party to BBC News. “That is why we came out with a clear ambition to be independent of fossil fuels: so we are not vulnerable to great fluctuations in energy price."

Denmark also announced in March that it would cut its energy consumption 12 percent from 2006 numbers by 2020.

Dong Energy, Denmark’s state-controlled utility, is making strides to move this initiative forward. According to Bloomberg, Dong announced Tuesday that it plans to invest $795 million to convert three of its coal- and gas-fired plants to biomass facilities that generate heat and electricity.

Denmark already produces 70 percent of its renewable energy via biomass. Sourcing new biomass will be the largest hurdle for the conversions that total to 1 GW of capacity, said Thomas Dalsgaard, executive vice president and head of generation for Dong Energy, to Bloomberg. Dong sources about 1 million metric tons of wood pellets per year, which would double with the additional plants. It hopes to expand its procurement to other continents, including North America.

“If all goes well then we hope to decide on all the conversions in the first half of 2013 and then the construction phase will last between one to three years so that these three units will be converted by 2015,” Dalsgaard said.

Dong also hopes to expand its renewable portfolio with bio-refineries, and it may combine one of its plants with an anaerobic digestion facility by 2015, according to Dalsgaard. It hopes to establish partnerships with waste management firms and oil companies that may be on the market for biofuels.

"Denmark will once again be the global leader in the transition to green energy,” said Martin Lidegaard, Danish minister for climate, energy and building, in a release. “Moreover, it will create some of the jobs that we need so desperately, now and in the coming years.”

Image: MLW80 via Shutterstock

19 Comments

Hakki Surel
May 9, 2012

Thanks guys to make me understand Kalina Rankine and Carnot cycle

V G SHENOI
April 21, 2012

Thanks Terry - as for Ammonia the Cena Hot Springs generator uses the 165F hot water to evaporate a refrigerant gas -(same principle as heat pumps or your home fridge where the refrigerant gas (in liquid form) evaporates taking heat from the inside of the fridge) which then drives a turbine generator - then condensed back as liquid - in principle that is the carnot/rankine principles which can be applied to any working fluid. All these schemes are limited in size compared with say a 900MW coal fired or a 1800MW nuclear generation system using water as the working fluid.

terry hallinan
April 21, 2012

Hi Bonkim,

The largest kalina cycle installation I know of is a German geothermal power plant producing about 5 MW of power but rankine cycle engines as a whole come in a dizzying variety of turbine and piston engines with varied claims for efficiency.

I have no idea if its possible but Chena Hot Springs northeast of Fairbanks, AK, hopes to reduce the cost of electricity to 1 cent/KWHR from from water as cool as 165 degrees F. I suspect there might possibly be some overhead not properly accounted for. :-)

Thank you for the conversation.

Best, Terry

V G SHENOI
April 20, 2012

Hello Terry - Steam turbines - regardless of approaching carnot efficiency - the limit is set by the ratio of steam flow stagnant velocity to the linear velocity of the blade at entry.

The Kalina cycle is a heat recovery system where waste heat is recovered in a water/ammonia system which can operate at a greater efficiency because of the fluid properties. You should see it as a heat recovery/energy maximisation system rather than simply a power generation system - for example in combined gas and steam turbine systems two different cycles are combined to squeeze a little more from the heat source - utilising the high temp waste heat from the GTs.

Not sure if the Kalina cycle will be used for largescale power plants - I understand they are in use in metal smelting and similar works where there is a lot of waste heat which can be extracted/pumped up same as in heat pump/geothermal applications - ammonia turbines operate within the vapour/liquid temp range of Ammonia - steam turbines within the max temp feasible with the available materials and that achievable in practice for condensing steam in a condenser - so combination of various fluids and cycles may provide increased heat utilisation - but cost and complexity will limit practical application..

terry hallinan
April 20, 2012

Hi bonkim,

I don't know what you mean by "straight rankine cycle" but the kalina cycle is actually a two-fluid rankine cycle engine with reported increases in efficiency that must yet be shown to be believed.

For example this:

>Technip, which has its U.S. headquarters in Houston, is guaranteeing the plant will generate at least 3 megawatts of power, though some estimates have the plant generating as much as 6 megawatts.

"This plant will be the first of its kind," said Michael Mugerwa, program director for renewables at Technip USA. "We are looking at, at least, 10 to 15 percent more power (than similar plants)."

Mugerwa said Technip is betting big on the improved geothermal technology, which is based on a version of the Kalina system that's been in place in Germany since 2009, but has been improved with further efficiencies through the partnership with Mannvit.<

http://www.sustainablebusinessoregon.com/articles/2012/03/geothermal-energy-plant-planned-for.html

I really don't know what to make of such claims but the now venerable rankine has hardly reached its limit for efficiency.

Best, Terry

V G SHENOI
April 20, 2012

terry-hallinan-70211 - please check your cycles - Steam turbines operating on straight rankine cycle - even with latest system energy reductions achieve around 42%

Gas Turbine/Stem turbine combined cycles have been noted to achieve over 60% fuel conversion to motive power. Even straight diesel cycles have been shown to go over 70% thermal efficiency - and the typical car diesel can go over 50% of heat input to motive power less any internal power consumption.

That is not to say schemes such as waste to energy, Anaerobic digestion, etc, don't have their place - the main purpose of EFW or AD is to deal with waste - in doing that maximise energy output and reduce disposal costs - EFW plants generally use the heat to generate steam for turbines - efficiency of such small turbines are relatively low compared with central stations firing fossil fuels.

The report is about Denmark converting fossil firing to biomass - a similar exercise is planned for converting Ironbrodge 2 x 500MW power station in England from coal to wood pellets. There is government subsidy for firing biomass, although UK does not produce the stuff which will have to be imported from Scandinavia or Russia at a huge cost - will not be economic without the renewable subsidy.

Denmark's windpower being intermittent meets around 5% of its needs despite 18-19% in capacity - Denmark also is interconnected to the large Hydro-power systems in Sweden/Norway which helps stabilise its demand/supply imbalance. Much of its wind power surplus is fed into the Northern grid system which is large enough to absorb the fluctuations. So nothing magical about Denmark's renewable energy - it is doing well out of the system - it is a small player in any case to make much difference to the big picture.

Scott Otterson
April 20, 2012

I believe that the article is incorrect in stating that Denmark already produces 70% of its renewable energy from biomass.

For example, according to the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Building, wind power produced 18.3% of the total energy supply in 2008, and biomass produced 7.7% of the total:

http://www.kemin.dk/en-US/facts/supply/renewable%20energy/Sider/renewableenergy.aspx

The numbers couldn't have changed that much in the last few years.

terry hallinan
April 18, 2012

South Korea has been producing fuel and fertilizer pellets from municipal sludge for years on a small scale. Behind the Bamboo Curtain China is at least interested if not in production.

The more people the more - umm - sludge.

Denmark has topped them all with an experimental farm collecting the stench of pigs (ammonia) on the Jutland Peninsula, utilizing it to help grow tomatoes.

Biomass fuel has been utilized for transportation far longer than fossil fuels. Nobody knows today if Mark Twain was reporting accurately that mummies bought by "the ton or graveyard" fueled the boilers of the Trans-Egypt Railroad but modern rankine cycle engines are fully superior to internal combustion engines and need only to be utilized rather than the silly electric cars.

We can do what is intelligent or maybe Mother Nature will have to take another crack at evolving an intelligent species. The old gal appears to have failed miserably this round.

Best, Terry

V G SHENOI
April 17, 2012

radhakrishnan-chirukandath-64236 - Denmark is peanuts in the international scene - with a population of 5.7M - similar to Scotland. Although their political parties are aiming to be 100% renewables - note the Dong plant will also burn industrial wastes - and supercritical boilers although having advantages in cycle efficiency have proven in practice to have many manufacturing and operational problems which eat through the reliability and availability factors hitting operational economics. Energy from waste is a form or renewable energy - apart from the plastics, most of the other combustibles come from renewable sources.

V G SHENOI
April 17, 2012

twilsey - we live in a commercial world and each component has to look after its own bottom line - waste to energy is not a commercial venture to produce cheap energy - but a cost and energy efficient disposal route compared with others - the energy generated displaces fossil fuels - reducing cost of disposing the waste and also reduces carbon footprint - did not realise Sweden did not have EFW plants - they do e.g SYSAV's waste-to-energy plant in Malmö. Their government is also reconsidering previous policies against incineration given the complexity, time and costs associated with recycling - which Swedes have been doing all these years.

recycling - may have payback for valuable materials - scrap glass sells for a tenth of the cost of collecting and transporting - the case for recycling is determined by the higher order factors - cost of collection and transport, landfill tax saved, and gate fee, etc, EFW requires simple low cost collection methods compared with the multi-bin/complex routes adopted for recycling - the carbon footprint increase is for transport and on-site process/handling - yes for glass and some metals - energy footprint may be lower with recycling compared with processes involving virgin ores, etc, but at what cost.

Looking at the bigger picture across the manufacture/distribution/ consumption/waste generation/disposal cycle and re-engineering reduction in packaging, may have some advantage if synchronised - but all this is controlled by many hands across national and economic boundaries - short of going back to a local subsistence economy and barter of pigs and cartloads of grain for home processing no real solutions - we are stuck with the present economic/industrial global economy with material and economic flows not under control of any one national or international entity.

Radhakrishnan Chirukandath
April 17, 2012

I have great admiration for Denmark who took a lead in establishing supercritical boilers and power, making energy efficiency to highest level as a first step. They have installed a number of wind farms.

I am not surprised at their aim to achieve even higher levels of green energy.

Troy Wilsey
April 16, 2012

To add one thought, the pesimistic side of me could support the arguement that man-kind will not have to make the choice to reduce populations, because nature will do it for us.

Troy Wilsey
April 16, 2012

I have done my homework on Recycling and have to support your rebuttal of the limitations in today's recycling methods. I concur that the energy used to recycle many materials (however not all, ie. glass, metals, organics) takes more energy than to produce new products. I also agree that in many cases it is not necessarily economically feasible to recycle, I will go further to support that in most cases it is not even economically feasible to burn the waste to make energy. But we should not be satisfied with these current facts and should look to the next 10, 25, 50, and 100 years. Japan and Sweden set prime examples of what our future may look like in managing waste. In order to reduce recycling costs, products can be designed with recycling in mind. I argue that we are accelerating towards a recycling centric future. Look at how far the auto industry has come in 25 years in recycling. Someday our landfills will become 'goldmines' for sourcing resources. It seems near sighted to me to place limitations on what we will accomplish in our future by basing it on today's technology. To bring this topic back on track, I am supporting that man-kind will find a way to manage energy and resources through technological advancement before setting into pace a quota on population limits. The idea of a world policy to reduce our existing population from 8 Billion down to a 'sustainable' number, is not an ethical solution in my eyes. Thank you for the responses, I appreciate your challenging views.

V G SHENOI
April 13, 2012

twilsey - have ou checked the cost and carbon footprint of recycling and sale value of the materials? Also not too difficult to work out the calorific value of any reclaimed fuel materials against the fossil fuel consumption - even with high utilisation efficiency.

Here in the UK recycling costs are not counted as local authorities like to boast about their recycling rates - too much hope and guess work with little technical and financial homework.

Hugh Sharman
April 13, 2012

Yeah! Imagine!

Troy Wilsey
April 13, 2012

Energy Efficiency and Recycling will make it possible for our societies to run solely on Renewable Energy,,, It is very reasonable to expect that our processes in utilizing energy will continue to become ever more efficient. Also, imagine a world where everything is recyclable, and we become a society where we no longer mine, cut, burn resources but instead remold the materials we have already collected into the next generation of products. This seems attainable to me.

V G SHENOI
April 13, 2012

as someone involved with fossil fired power projects for over 45 years - regrettably coal firing has serious environmental risks - costs are also rising and many countries such as the UK are closing down coal fired stations. India, China, Indonesia, the US, Australia, s Africa, etc, will continue to rely on coal as they have huge reserves - but at what environmental cost?

Not sure how Denmark can continue coal firing against the EU direction.

Given that bio-fuels will be unable to replace present and future expected demand for electricity, transport, and heat, the only alternative with some more centuries of reserve is nuclear which has the added advantage of being low-carbon but with other risks.

No easy answers I am afraid.

Hugh Sharman
April 13, 2012

As a resident of and tax-payer in Denmark, I hope that our superb (world-beating) coal-burning facilities, which deliver over 90% of coal's energy into power and heat during our cold winters, will not be affected by the lunatic politicians dreaming up this idea.

Even Sweden, a vast, managed, forest is a net wood fuel importer. Of course, the rest of the world cannot deliver the wood fuels needed to satisfy the "global warming" policies of the EU, of which Denmark is but a tiny part!

V G SHENOI
April 13, 2012

As inferred - fuel supply will be the main hurdle - worldwide renewable sources will not be able to supply equivalent to present fossil fuel consumption.

Populations and per capita of energy is increasing worldwide - so although small countries such as Denmark may be able to change to 100% renewables (even that with difficulty) the prospects worldwide is dire.

Need to reduce populations and consumption drastically if mankind is to survive.

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Meg Cichon

As associate editor of RenewableEnergyWorld.com, I coordinate and edit feature stories, contributed articles, news stories, opinion pieces and blogs. I also research and write content for RenewableEnergyWorld.com and REW magazine. I manage...