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Aquila Cofires Biomass with Coal in Canon City
May 9, 2005
Colorado Aquila has begun a demonstration project to
cofire biomass in its coal-fired power station in Canon City. The
project involves mixing small amounts of wood culled from fire-prone
forests on Colorado’s Front Range with much larger percentage of coal.
It is supported with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
and the Colorado Governor’s Office of Energy Management and
Conservation (OEMC).
Aquila run tests of cofiring biomass at this
facility for the past three years and has made technical progress.
These technical challenges have to do with handling the biomass and
feeding it into the boiler, the percent mixture of biomass and coal
that a particular boiler can handle, and emissions. Aquila bought 840
tons of forest thinnings cleared from the Air Force Academy in
Colorado Springs by Morgan Timber Products last fall, and has a permit
to cofire up to 5% biomass at Canon City.
Aquila now joins the ranks of more than a dozen U.S.
utilities that have experience cofiring biomass with coal. The utility
is based in Kansas City and provides electricity services to 446,000
customers in three states and natural gas to almost one million
customers in seven midwestern states. Through this project, Aquila
will become the first company in the country to sell renewable energy
certificates (RECs) based on biomass. For more on the REC’s, see
OEMC’s January 25 press release (PDF 31 KB).
http://www.state.co.us/oemc/press/050124.pdf
For more on the project, read an article about the
project in the April 2005 edition of Biocycle by Angela Crooks, who is
developing a market strategy for the sale of renewable energy
certificates from biomass with McNeil Technologies, Inc. in Lakewood.
http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/000411.html |
