Babcock & Wilcox subsidiary wins $80M biomass contract in Denmark

Denmark’s DONG Energy has awarded The Babcock & Wilcox Co.’s Volund subsidiary a contract worth more than $80 million to build two biomass-fired boilers for its Skaerbaek Power Station.

The 280-megawatt plant will burn wood chips and biomass residue to
produce electricity and heating for the Fredericia district, where it
will be built.

“For a long period, investments in new biomass-fired plants have been
restrained — both in Denmark and internationally — due to the global
financial crisis and uncertainty about the prices of the different types
of fuels,” says John Veje Olesen,
managing director of B&W Volund.”We are of course delighted that
DONG Energy — the largest producer of energy in Denmark — with this
contract has focused on the many benefits of climate-friendly energy
production based on biomass.”

Targeting 2017

DONG Executive Vice President Thomas Dalsgaard says the agreement is the largest single contract in the company’s
plans to convert the 418-megawatt Skaerbaek natural gas plant to
biomass.

The boilers are expected to be complete in the spring of 2017.

B&W Volund says the biomass plant will be able to burn up to 154
tons per hour. It will be designed for continuous operation throughout
the year, interrupted only by short periods of maintenance. B&W
estimates the total running time will be at least 8,000 hours per year
for each of the boilers.

B&W also says its B&W Construction Co. Inc. has been awarded a contract to build a desulfurization unit at Southwestern Electric Power Co.’s 550-megawatt Flint Creek Power Plant in Gentry, Ark.

The value of that contract, with construction scheduled for completion in mid-2016, has not been disclosed.