Europlasma (Euronext : ALEUP - ISIN FR0000044810), a French company with a global reach that builds, designs and operates plasma solutions for renewable energy generation and hazardous waste recovery, announces the arrival and installation of the new heat exchanger in the CHO Morcenx power plant and confirms the planning of next steps before final acceptance of the plant.
Process improvements are on schedule
In January, CHOPEX operator training on engine level-1 maintenance and operation was completed.
The new heat exchanger arrived on site on 27 January as planned, has been installed and satisfactorily tested. This equipment is designed to enable full control of syngas temperature before injection into the engines at full load, representing one of the key improvements to the process identified during the preliminary take-over tests mid-2014.
During the short campaigns performed in the last 3 months, destined essentially to test equipment or new operational settings, some noticeable progress has been achieved in stabilizing syngas quality at 4.2 MJ/kg, and in reducing the carbon content in ash (from 70% to 30%, evidencing a better gasification of the waste & biomass). A soot-compacting trial has also been successfully performed, with an external partner, once operational this will materially reduce the cost of soot disposal.
The supporting structures for the new set of economizers arrived on site on 12 March, and are currently being set up. This is part of a major enhancement to the recovery boiler, which required a 700k€ investment, designed to improve the thermal efficiency of the boiler at full load, as well as to reduce the frequency of soot blows which is causing instability in the process. The upgraded recovery boiler will be operational by end-April, enabling stable plant operation at nominal capacity.
Final Acceptance is expected by summer 2015
CHO Power and CHOPEX teams are working towards a plant handover by the summer of 2015, with two engines, demonstrating all operational parameters have reached nominal levels, including gasification at full load, tar reduction, heat recovery, operation of the existing 2 engines and turbine, environmental efficiencies, etc. At that stage, the plant will also demonstrate it produces enough high-quality syngas to feed the additional engines. Consequently, this handover will enable us to confirm the plant technically and commercially.
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