Mary Wallace, minister of state at the Department of Agriculture and Food, led a delegation of Irish forestry and research experts, with the fact-finding trip starting at the recently completed Lextorp plant at Trollhättan. After this the group went on to the Mark Värme plant in Kinna.
The aim of the exercise was to evaluate the viability of similar combined heat and power plants for Ireland.
Both Swedish plants were developed by Wärtsilä and feature the latter’s BioPower 5DH systems which are fulled with byproducts from the local forestry industry. The Lextorp facility supplies 16-17MWth for district heating, providing 30% of Trollhättan’s needs, plus 3.5-3.6MWe of electricity.
The Kinna plant, combined with an existing heating facility, supplies heat to 800 customers in the area and enough electricity for 2500 houses.
“Higher electricity prices, together with environmental certification issues, have made electricity production in biomass-fuelled small-scale combined heat and power and condensing plants an attractive prospect for municipalities with access to wood-based biofuels and for the mechanical wood processing industry,” said Wärtsilä’s Swedish power plants general manager Tord Johnsson.
