Global Watch

Bronkhorstspruit, South Africa

Bio2Watt biogas plant generates 4.6 megawatts of electricity

Anaergia Africa Proprietary Ltd., the Cape Town, South Africa, subsidiary of Burlington, Ontario-based Anaergia Inc., was chosen by Johannesburg, South Africa-based Bio2Watt Ltd. to operate a commercial biogas plant in Bronkhorstspruit, South Africa. Bio2Watt’s Bronkhorstspruit plant takes in agricultural and other organic waste and converts it to electricity. The plant has the capacity to generate 4.6 megawatts of electricity, and it is connected to the power grid.

Andrew Benedek, CEO of Anaergia Inc., says, “We believe that there are tremendous opportunities to convert organic waste into clean energy in Africa.”

Anaergia Africa Proprietary Ltd. began its new role at the Bio2Watt biogas plant in Bronkhorstspruit on July 18, 2016.

Singapore

WTE research facility receives funding

The National Environment Agency of Singapore (NEA) signed a collaboration agreement with the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore (NTU) to cofund the development of a $29.8 million waste-to-energy (WTE) research facility. The facility will be the first of its kind in Singapore, according to the NEA and NTU, and enable the translation of emerging WTE technologies, from research into demonstration and test-bedding projects.

Expected to be commissioned by late 2018, the facility will be an open platform to support research and its translation, as well as manpower training to build technical competencies. Possible demonstration and test-bedding projects to be conducted at the facility include turning waste and biomass into synthetic gas and using it to run a gas engine or turbine, using slag in engineering applications, a flue gas treatment module for lower emissions, low-grade heat recovery and using a gas separation membrane to extract oxygen from air.

Bucaramanga, Colombia

Weltec Biopower builds AD plant for egg producer

The operator, Incubadora Santander, located in Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia, which produces about 3.5 million eggs a day, plans to make use of the codigestion of dry chicken manure from the laying hens and process water from the production. The company markets its eggs in 14 cities in Colombia.

Weltec Biopower, Vechta, Germany, soon will build an anaerobic digestion plant for a Colombian egg producer. The 800-kilowatt biogas plant is expected to be operational early 2017.

The feedstock will be pretreated in a sedimentation tank. There, the manure will be pumped into the 6,412-cubic-yard digester by way of an upstream storage unit with a capacity of 1,407 cubic yards. Through the codigestion, the digestate will reach a high fertilizer value, enabling it to be returned into the plant’s agricultural substance cycle for efficient use as liquid manure on its own fields.