Case studies

Case studies Biomass

Case studies Biomass

	Title
	Case study: Corn pellet stove at Harley-Davidson Center, Chicago Motorcycle showroom heating based on high-efficiency Wilo-Stratos pumps from Dortmund / energy saving potential of 80 percent compared with unregulated pumps The USA does not exactly enjoy the best of reputations as far as environmental protection and the economic use of resources are concerned. Nevertheless, Zylstra Harley-Davidson, one of the leading authorised dealers of this classic motorcycle brand in the US, have now demonstrated that forward-looking projects can also be found in that part of the world. The company employs more than 200 personnel and maintains three branches in the states of Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. Right from the start, it has been the declared aim of the proprietor that the recently opened branch centre in Saint Charles, should use corn pellets, a renewable, CO2 neutral fuel, to generate heat. Operating in conjunction with a pump system supplied by WILO AG, a company from Dortmund specialising in this field of equipment, the building now enjoys the full benefit of maximum energy efficiency in its heating requirements. To maintain the circulation of the heating water throughout the building, Wilo-Stratos pumps require only a fifth of the electricity that would have been consumed by standard pumps. The company has now voluntarily undertaken to undergo classification of its products, under the auspices of Europump, the European pump manufacturers' organisation, in accordance with the EU energy label scheme, which has been devised especially for pumps.
	Rural Electricity Provision in Tanzania with Photovoltaic and Bioenergy Solar hybrid systems: new perspectives for rural electrification and regional economic development The lack of electricity in rural regions of is one cause of the insufficient economic development in certain countries. Outside of the major towns and cities the only source of electricity is diesel generators. In the face of drastically rising costs for crude oil and the decreasing supply of this resource, this form of electricity provision results in a restriction of ?s economic development in the long term. The Cologne-based company Energiebau Solarstromsysteme GmbH and InWEnt - Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbH have jointly developed a concept for rural electrification in on the basis of renewable energies, and carried out a successful reference project with the German Energy Agency dena. The above parties successfully built a hybrid solar system in the of in , with the participation of the local population. The new technology combines a solar power unit with a traditional generator run on oil that the local population sources from the jatropha nut, an inedible crop. The Energiebau specialists returned from Mbinga/Tanzania at the end of August 2006, having successfully completed the project. The power unit now provides electricity from renewable energies for the facilities of the Vincentian Sisters in Mbinga, with more than 140 people in twelve building complexes, 80 km away from the south-Tanzanian town of .
	Industrial-scale production in world's largest biogas plant The Leipzig-based company Nawaro BioEnergie AG is building Germany's first BioEnergy Park in Penkun, a small city in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on the German-Polish border. The "Klarsee" industrial estate has been chosen as the location for the largest biogas plant in the world and construction work should be completed by autumn 2007. The company is installing 40 standardised modules for electricity generation with a total electrical capacity of 20 megawatts on an area of around 20 hectares, about the size of 20 football fields. The park will be capable of generating 20 megawatts of electricity per hour, covering all the power needs of a small city. This biogas utilisation concept will make it possible to generate energy from biomass on an industrial scale in Germany for the first time.
	Combined waste water treatment system for the treatment of distillation plant waste water in China The Jiu Chang distillation plant in Qingdao (Shangdong province) produces around 10,000 tonnes of alcohol per year. Up to now, the waste water produced has been discharged untreated into the surface ground water. As a part of a UN project, a modern treatment plant with energy generation has been built in Qingdao, which is to serve as a model project for the distillation sector in China.
	The First Bioenergy Village in Germany Our provision of heating and electricity supplies has to date relied to a large extent on finite fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. In many such cases we are dependent on raw material imports. Carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas bound over millions of years, is being released in a short period of time through the burning of oil, gas and coal. The use of atomic energy is also dependent on raw material imports, as all uranium deposits are located abroad. However energy provision, particularly in rural areas, can be based on domestic energy sources, such as wood, liquid manure, energy crops and other biomass. The advantage of biomass as stored solar energy lies in its storage ability and constant availability relative to requirements at a particular time. It can be used as both a base load and peak load power source. The way in which such a provision of heating and electricity supplies can be implemented is currently being put into action in the first model bioenergy village in Germany - the village of Jühnde, near Göttingen.