Firewood testing at Skeldon co-generation plant deemed successful

May 21, 2018 News

The Skeldon Energy Inc. (SEI) in its bid to source alternative fuel has successfully conducted a test of steam-powered generation at the Skeldon sugar factory energy plant.
Firewood chippings which were sourced from within the community of Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) were used as the medium to power the plant.
The test was said to have allowed a “much more stable and smooth boiler operation than that achieved using bagasse fuel, which often contains much higher moisture content”.

The Skeldon Energy Inc. team during the visit last week.

The wood, which was pre-processed into wood chips was demonstrated during a tour of the facility.
With a 40% moisture content it proved “a much greater ease of operation of the fuel feed system”.
According to SEI executives, the next step will realize limited scale trial operations varying mix of biomass fuels, blended with firewood chips and rice husk, including excess bagasse held at the Albion Sugar Factory.
The trials, they said, will be periodically conducted each month between June and August 2018 during which time limited power generation operations spanning one to two weeks in duration will be undertaken.

Workers operating the wood-chipper machine.

SEI has said that they are prepared to engage with the business community of Region Six, especially those interested in regularly supplying substantial quantities of biomass at a prescribed price.
Consultations between local stakeholders and the management of SEI were conducted on Thursday, April 19, 2018 at the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Skeldon Training Centre where persons were allowed to weigh in on the endeavour.
Some supported and some chided the move as saying it was “not possible”.
Additionally, SEI’s target is to deliver and receive a regular supply of fuel, “approximately 100,000 tons per year of mixed biomass in various forms at a unit price per ton of US$20.00 (equivalent) delivered to the Skeldon plant site”.
According to Management, the cost for the production of electricity through the biomass based steamed power generation “is much cheaper than that produced using heavy fuel oil diesel power generation”.
The aim they said is to achieve substantial utilization of mixed biomass fuel cogeneration in the ancient county and to also convert the cogeneration assets from “season use (based on sugarcane harvesting) to base load application (operating approximately 7000 hrs/yr) to establish Skeldon cogeneration assets as a reliable performing asset”.

UPGRADES
Currently, the 10MW Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) diesel plant has been rehabilitated since March with the performance described by SEI as “outstanding”.
For the year 2017, it was revealed that the combined total of HFO diesel and co-gen energy achieved at Skeldon amounted to 90.7 Gigawatt Hour (Gwh), the highest ever from the plant.
Of this amount, 74.5 Gwh were distributed to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) grid representing approximately 9.5% of the GPL’s total distributed energy; the highest ever production from the Skeldon installation.
Some 12.5 Gwh was also distributed to GuySuCo Skeldon Sugar Factory during 2017.
Management has stated that the recovery of the 12×15 MW co-gen plant commenced in earnest in January 2017 and to date the fundamental plant safety issues prevailing at the end of year 2016 were substantially addressed, resolved and tested by plant operations, during the sugar crop of October to December 2017.
A continual short term programme is currently being undertaken on one of the boilers and the overall computerized distributed control system since several issues of operational reliability and optimal efficiency still exists.
SEI further added that they are moving to a full rehabilitation of the co-gen plant with phase 1 running to December 2018; this will include reliability works on boiler number 2 (during April to August 2018).
In its present stage, boiler tube replacement was noticed during the tour with additional work of sealing of combustion chamber.
Additionally, there are plans for the supply and installation of the second 17.5 Mva, 69kv bulk transformer for the necessary off take reliability to the GPL grid by December 2018.
The financing of the investment for the full rehabilitation was previously projected by SEI at US$17M; however, according to Management, recent updates of the physical and technical requirements indicate that this CAPEX projection is an estimate of the investment needed; confirmation of which will be achieved by July 2018.