Power from wood scrap
Evonik Industries is one of Germany's largest players exploiting biomass for energy. In the year 2007, we generated heat and electricity in ten plants from about 400,000 metric tons of wood scrap. This is sufficient to provide 17,500 single-family households with heat and about 77,000 with power.
An important contribution to climate protection
With our biomass power plants, we are contributing substantially to a sustainable energy mix and climate protection. Wood is a raw material that has taken up exactly as much CO2 during growth as it releases on burning. This means that CO2 emissions are reduced by about 350,000 metric tons annually as compared to fossil fuels.
Cleaner energy mix for local supply
Our biomass plants are basically designed the same as other power plants, that is, all have a boiler, a turbine, and a flue gas purification system. Only the fuel is different: wood scrap, obtained from, for example, construction timber or furniture. The plants are much smaller than coal-fired power plants, and provide local consumers with heat or steam. The electricity is fed into the public grid.
Experts in energy generation from wood scrap
In the future, we will also be targeting markets abroad, including Eastern Europe and the U.K., for biomass recycling. In the U.K. all waste, including wood scrap, is at present landfilled. Landfilling will be taxed more heavily in the future, so that it pays to generate energy from wood scrap. Thanks to our expertise and experience in generating energy from biomass, we are excellently prepared to take advantage of the new markets.
