Livestock farmers wanted for pilot with wood gasifier

Entrepreneur Peter Baars is looking for livestock farmers who want to participate in a pilot in which a small power station called 'HEC Calore' is central. The power plant runs on syngas and the released heat is converted into stable heat.

There are several research themes for this pilot, such as the development costs, the tax consequences, the business return and the possibilities for an SDE+ subsidy. On Tuesday 3 October, the central government subsidy desk reopened.

Developing a power plant
The aim of the pilot is to develop a power station on the farm that generates exactly the amount of energy the barn needs for heating. The HEC Calore, which means stove in Italian, works on wood chips. At the end of the cycle, charcoal is left over, which can be recycled for soil improvement.

Research has shown that 1 kilowatt of electricity, generated with syngas, produces twice the amount of heat. Baars: "The electricity generated can be used for own use, but it can also be sold to the grid. The HEC Calore does not emit smoke or noise pollution and has been developed according to European sustainability standards."

Heat pump
Baars wants to link the generated electricity to a heat pump to heat the stable. This is to ensure that a livestock farmer no longer has to heat with natural gas. A power station with a production of 200 kilowatts supplies 400 kilowatts of heat. The plant can be built on 300 square meters, including the storage space for the necessary wood chips.

Upscaling is possible, but it depends on the heat demand on the agricultural company. "A 200-kilowatt power station consumes about 1.600 tons of wood chips. That is 7.600 burning hours per year. That's about 210 kg per hour. 100.000 tons of unprocessed waste wood, so-called A-wood, is available in the Netherlands every year," explains Baars. . 

Almost all types of wood can be used
Possible wood sources, in addition to waste wood, are girth wood, fruit stands and municipal parks. Virtually all wood can be used to generate syngas. Except poplar, because that type of wood contains, according to Baars, too much moisture. The drying tunnel of the generating installation would not be able to handle that.

The syngas gasification process is not new. In forested Austria and Italy, regional power plants have been generating electricity with syngas for years. Baars will start the construction of its own syngas plant in Italy this month. It will be linked to a greenhouse project. That company, which should be operational in 2018, will also act as an example project in the Netherlands.

At the end of October, Baars is organizing an excursion to a syngas plant in the Italian region of Veneto for those interested.

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