Chicken Manure Biogas to Power Jenbacher Gas Engines for Electricity and Heat

GE Energy's ecomagination certified Jenbacher gas engines will use biogas created from chicken manure to generate needed power and heat at a large chicken farm north of the China's capital city of Beijing. The plant is the first of its type in China and could pave the way for similar applications in the future.

The Beijing Deqingyuan Chicken Farm Waste Utilization plant comes as the country seeks innovative ways to meet its energy and environmental requirements. Providing 14,600 MWh of electricity per year, the project is designed to help reduce sub-urban electricity shortages.

By using the biogas for power generation in place of previously used coal-fired power, the new project is expected to reduce the equivalent of about 95,000 tons of CO2 per year, qualifying the project for the U.N.-sanctioned Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) program.

The Beijing Deqingyuan project is also reducing the farm's dust levels, further enhancing the area's air and water quality by controlling odors and improving the work environment for the farm's employees. The improvements support the guidelines of several Chinese government initiatives including the Underground Water Conservation Law, the New Rural Construction Plan and the Distributed Energy Solution Policy.

Located in YanQing District, about 50 kilometers north of Beijing, the farm owns three million chickens, producing 220 tons of manure and 170 tons of wastewater each day. The farm's new cogeneration system features an anaerobic digester system to treat the waste material, producing enough biogas to fuel two GE's Jenbacher JMS 320 GS-B.L gas engines. The plant has an installed electric capacity of more than 2 MW for use at the chicken farm. Additionally, the plant's thermal output is used to support the chicken waste fermentation process and also heat the chicken farm in the winter.

"This biogas project will quickly pay for itself by meeting the customer's demand for cost-effective electricity and heat," said Jack Wen, President and CEO of GE Energy China. "We estimate that the customer will save more than US$1.2 million a year in electricity costs alone."

The project further expands GE's overall presence in China, where the company has been active for more than 90 years. With about 1,300 Jenbacher biogas engines delivered worldwide, GE is providing a well-proven technology to support China's initiatives to expand the production of renewable energy, including from animal and agricultural waste biomass.

GE's agreement also includes spare parts and training for the cogeneration plant operators. The owner of the project is the Beijing Deqingyuan Agricultural Technology Co. Ltd. of Beijing. Other key participants in the chicken farm cogeneration project include GE's local distributor for Jenbacher gas engines, Jebsen & Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong; DI, Beijing Power System Design Institute; and Huadian Engineering of Beijing, the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor.