RWE Innogy to build wood pellet plant in Georgia, US

Jan 20, 2010. /Lesprom Network/. RWE Innogy is to build a factory to produce biomass pellets in the southern part of the US state of Georgia. The plant will have an annual production capacity of 750,000 tonnes, the company said in a press release received by Lesprom Network. The project will be carried out in collaboration with BMC Management AB, which specialises in the development of biomass manufacturing solutions and is based in Sweden. The pellets will be used in pure biomass power plants as well as for the co-firing of coal and biomass. The pellets plant is due to take up operation in 2011. The total investment volume amounts to approx. Euro 120 million. Dr. Leonhard Birnbaum, Member of the Executive Board of RWE AG said: “Through this investment, RWE has taken a strategically important step towards safeguarding the supply basis for the constantly growing biomass market in Europe. This is because we will be unable to achieve the targets for reducing CO2 emissions in Germany and Europe without biomass. But the European wood market will not be able to satisfy the demand in this fast growing sector on its own." The biomass pellets will initially be burnt in the existing power plants of Amer in the Netherlands, where currently already up to 30% of the hard coal has been replaced by solid biomass, mainly wood pellets. In the coming years, the use of the biomass pellets is to be extended to other pure biomass power plants and also to conventional power plant sites in the Netherlands (e.g. Eemshaven power plant, which is currently under construction), Germany, Italy and the UK. Forests in Georgia provide enough wood to sustainably produce the pellets. Around 1.5 million metric tonnes of fresh wood are needed each year to produce 750,000 tonnes of pellets. Unlike Europe, the US have a huge growth surplus of wood that is not used. This is particularly true in the Georgia region, from which numerous paper and pulp companies have withdrawn over the past decade, thus further reducing the demand for wood. Wood growth is currently ahead of consumption in Georgia, the company said.