Conergy subsidiary EPURON sells another biogas plant to MVV Energiedienstleistungen
- Following the sale of the biogas plant in Oehna/Brandenburg, three projects have now been sold to the energy service provider
- From summer 2009, MVV Energiedienstleistungen will be generating environmentally friendly heat as well as electricity for around 1,200 households in a combined heat and power plant
- Emission of 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year avoided
Hamburg, December 8, 2008 – The German enterprise EPURON GmbH has sold another biogas plant to the energy service provider MVV Energiedienstleistungen. The Oehna plant with an output of 0.537 MW will be constructed at the start of next year in the southern part of Brandenburg. From June 2009, it will generate environmentally friendly electricity and heat from corn silage, liquid pig manure and solid cow dung. Compared with fossil fuels, this prevents the emission of around 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. EPURON was responsible for the project planning and financing. The plant is to be constructed by the company BioConstruct from Melle.
Following Voßhöhlen in Schleswig-Holstein and Karow in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Oehna is now the third biogas plant that EPURON has sold to the subsidiary of the listed MVV Energie. “The biogas projects undertaken by EPURON fit in well with the strategy of MVV Energiedienstleistungen of increasing investments throughout Germany in renewable energies such as biogas and biomass. Since entering the biogas market last year, we have consistently further expanded our involvement with a total of four plants to date”, says Michael Lowak, Managing Director of MVV Energiedienstleistungen GmbH.
“Particularly against the backdrop of long-term increases in the price of raw materials, energy providers will continue to look to regenerative sources of energy”, says Moritz Böcking, head of project development for bio-energy at EPURON. “In particular, the improvements in general conditions for biogas plants on account of the amended Renewable Energies Act will add to the interest in this technology.”
From summer 2009, the Oehna biogas plant will be used to ferment some 5,600 tons of corn silage, 6,000 tons of liquid pig manure and 8,000 tons of solid cow dung per year. The substrates are guaranteed over the entire term of 20 years by the cooperation partner Oehnaland Agrargesellschaft mbH. At the same time, Oehnaland will also be seeing to the technical operational management of the plant. The plant converts the biogas that is generated into electrical and thermal energy. Using the electricity that is fed into the public grid, it will be possible to supply around 1,200 households. The heat generated during the process will be used by the adjacent industrial premises of the Oehnaland Agrargesellschaft agricultural society for heating its stables.
In future, EPURON is planning further biogas projects in Germany. From 2009, the amended Renewable Energies Act (EEG) will make biogas projects up to 2 MW particularly profitable for EPURON. In addition to traditional cogeneration concepts, the company is increasingly examining locations where it is possible to feed the bio-methane directly into a nearby natural gas pipeline. Within the scope of raw material supply, EPURON is still pursuing multi-feed stock concepts as part of an effort to absorb price fluctuations in the raw materials sector.