Nexterra, GE Energy partner up on commercial-scale biomass power systems
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
It’s a match made in renewable heaven. After two years of collaboration Vancouver-based Nexterra Energy, developer of biomass gasification systems, has partnered with GE Energy to create modular biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plants of between 2 and 10 megawatts in size. Nexterra has optimized its system to work with GE’s Jenbacher high-efficiency gas engines. Specifically, it has upgraded the syngas that comes out of its system so that it meets the fuel specifications of the Jenbacher engine.
“We believe the combination of biomass gasification and internal combustion engines is a breakthrough for biomass power generation,” said Prady Iyyanki, CEO of GE’s Jenbacher division.
The biomass CHP system is ideal for on-site heat and power applications at universities, hospitals, and other government facilities, as well as food and beverage plants, waste management facilities and forest product mills. Independent power producers — perhaps part of community co-ops — could also use the systems as standalone power generators for their communities. (more…)
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca