A new 450kW biogas cogeneration plant has gone live in Japan’s Saitama Prefecture, 40 kilometres from the country’s capital of Tokyo.
The plant is developed and operated by the German biogas and biomethane plant developer and operator Weltec and is the fourth plant of its kind opened by the company in the country.
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The new plant digests some 12,000 tons of organic waste and cattle manure into energy, supplied by a nearby facility owned by the operator.
The largely liquid organic fuels are pumped into a 2823m3, 25.34-meter diameter digester, before being fed into a 336m3 upstream substrate storage tank. Following generation, digestate is fed into a 525m3 digestate tank, from which most of the digestate is dried into solids, to be used as compost and fertiliser.
The modular plant design has been constructed with consideration given to the country’s susceptibility to seismic activity.
“The Japanese appreciate the custom plant design and the benefits of our modular approach, especially because the plant structure with stainless-steel modules facilitates the consideration of the special risks in areas that experience a lot of seismic activity,” noted Vladimir Bogatov, head of sales operations for Weltec.
Weltec set to supervise the biological management of the new facility in order to maximise the gas yield.
