The Challenge:
Energy production from biomass is CO2 neutral, biomass is renewable and can be used in existing energy production plants, and biomass can be stored and used when other sources of energy are scarce.
But a new EU directive, designed to save some of the 420,000 lives lost every year to air pollution in the EU, means that today’s technologies cannot meet the demands by any other means than adding expensive emission reduction systems to their solutions.
This will make energy from biomass more expensive, lead to higher energy bills for consumers and threaten to put the entire renewable energy roadmap as well as the climate goals from the Commission at risk.
Solution - the innovation:
Dall Energy has developed a new, disruptive biomass furnace that reduces dust and particle emissions by more than 90% and can easily meet the demands in the new directive, and offer a whole new set of other benefits to outperform current state-of-the-art, the well-known grate combustion technology:
• Approx. 30% lower investment (much simpler design with very few moving parts)
• Approx. 50% lower maintenance costs (no technical difficulties, low power consumption)
• Very wide load window (fast and easy modulation between 10 and 100% load without problems)
• Up to 40% reduction of fuel cost as the technology is very fuel flexible, enabling conversion of a wide range of low-value fuels such as wet and dry biomass, organic waste streams, willow, pellets, etc. in the same furnace.
Impact:
As energy from biomass constitutes no less than 63.1% of the renewable energy contribution to the EU (2014), the Dall Energy furnace will help ensure that the EU meets its 2050 climate goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050, and secure a competitive and decarbonised energy system in 2050.
The approx. 4,000 biomass plants in the EU that fit with the Dall Energy furnace size will enjoy less investment costs, less operational costs and not least a significantly reduced pollution impact on both local and global scale, regardless whether they are heat plants, power plants or industrial production plants with their own energy production.
Business potential for Dall Energy:
In the Dall Energy furnace range, the EU-28 market totals approx. 4,000 plants, of which approx. 3,000 are heating plants, the first priority market segment for Dall Energy. In this segment, there is a market of 150-250 new plants and 130-170 replacement plants annually in EU-28 alone.
By 2023, Dall Energy expects a turnover of €140m and 375 jobs created in-house, as well as 1,038 jobs with EU-based suppliers as a direct result of this project.
Expected outcomes:
The expected outcomes are an adapted furnace design and a demonstrated and validated furnace with a French host, Dalkia, as the first international customer to serve as a foothold for an EU and soon a global roll-out of the innovation.
The success criterion for Dall Energy is to be able to sell Dall Energy biomass systems on fully commercial terms across Europe when the project is concluded.
