Saxlund International was selected by principal contractor Galliford Try Infrastructure in May 2016 to provide the bulk fuel reception and handling technology for three waste wood gasification facilities currently under construction in Barry, Boston and Hull, for renewable energy company Biomass UK. Saxlund is now on site in construction on all three sites.
With these three contracts, Saxlund is now contracted to deliver 13 alternative fuel handling systems in the UK by the end of 2017. As the firm points out, this is over 50% of current UK projects in construction. This amount of construction involves vast quantities of equipment such as 1.5 km of Push Floor Ladders (if placed end to end) and the combined volume of push floors covering 10 tennis courts and storage areas of biomass/RDF totalling nearly 4 Olympic sized swimming pools.
With a combined contract value of £2.6 million, Saxlund is responsible for the design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of similar fuel handling systems at each site. This includes Saxlund’s Push Floor reception and storage system, discharging into a conveying and screening system to feed fuel into twin gasifier bins at each site.
Each system will provide on-site buffer storage for approximately 600m3 of waste wood and is designed to discharge some 100,000 tonnes of fuel per annum. Future proofing each site to take account of changing fuel characteristics has been a key focus, says Saxlund, and while each site is designed to work initially with wood chip, the firm says its design will accommodate alternative fuel sources.
The “fully automated state-of-the-art Push Floor technology” is based on ‘first in, first out’ principles, specifically designed to limit the opportunity for the fuel to degrade or compact. This in turn ensures a resilient on demand process with discharge, conveying and weighing system, feeding the fuel to the gasifier feed bins.
With project completion expected in the second half of 2017 the three plants will have a combined export capacity of 30MW to the national grid.
Matt Drew, Managing Director of Saxlund International said: “We’re delighted to be working with Galliford Try on these installations for Biomass UK. As an approved supplier we have been involved from the earliest stages on pre-contract and design development to ensure highly resilient on demand fuel handling solutions for each site.”
