Nexterra Waste Gasification System Comes On-line in BC

17 September 2012 Vancouver based renewable waste gasification specialist, Nexterra Systems has completed a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) project with the University of British Columbia (UBC) and GE (NYSE: GE) at UBC's Vancouver campus - and has also signalled a move into the expanding UK market. According to the Nexterra the project is North America's first commercial demonstration of a transformative system that combines Nexterra's gasification and syngas conditioning technologies with one of GE's Jenbacher internal combustion engines. The company said that the Jenbacher gas engine will produce 2 MW of clean, renewable electricity that will offset UBC's existing power consumption. The system will also generate 3 MW of thermal energy, enough steam to displace up to 12% of UBC's natural gas consumption. The company said that this will reduce UBC's greenhouse gas emissions by up to 5000 tonnes per year - equivalent of taking more than 1000 cars off the road. Nexterra said that the successful start-up of the project at UBC - officially named the 'Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility (BRDF)' - represents an important milestone in its quest to reliably convert low-value waste feedstocks into higher value renewable fuels and chemicals. The company added that the system has completed a comprehensive testing program for reliability, capacity and emissions, and has successfully connected to the grid. According to its developer, the gasification technology platform and gas clean-up and thermal cracking solution, allows the system to convert locally-sourced waste wood into a clean, reliable gas that is suitable for use in a high-efficiency, industrial-scale gas engine to produce heat and power. Nexterra claimed that the system will deliver global electrical efficiencies that are 25% higher than traditional methods for producing biomass based electricity at this scale. The gasification specialist said that the start-up of the system represents the culmination of more than four years of product development work and collaboration with GE's Gas Engines business. The company added that prior to installing the gas engine at UBC it completed more than 5000 hours of trials at its Product Development Center in Kamloops BC. UK market The UBC announcement comes fast on the heels of Nexterra's signing of a strategic alliance with UK based Stopford Projects to market its waste to energy gasification systems in the UK. According to the company, conditions are particularly ripe in the UK market. Nexterra claimed that its systems are ideally suited to convert available waste feedstocks in the UK into renewable energy, and recent revisions to the UK's Renewable Obligation Certificate Program now qualify deployment of Nexterra's gasification technology as an eligible renewable energy source. "The UK is a growing market for clean, renewable energy solutions like Nexterra's," said Prith Rajendran, managing director of Stopford Projects, noting that combining Nexterra's waste gasification systems with local market knowledge creates market opportunities for both companies. Free Magazine Subscription Free Email Newsletter