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2007-05-15 News Release

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Exploiting the use of biofuels

The town of Fritzens, Austria, disposes of waste products and exploits biofuels to generate electricity at the same time.

The world’s current dependence on fossil fuels presents two challenges: dwindling supply and the greenhouse gases produced when these fuels are burned. In Austria, an innovative power plant is taking on both challenges at once - generating power from used cooking oil.

In the fight against global warming, the 27 Member States of the European Union in March 2007, themselves to ambitious, binding targets. Taking a world lead, the EU has undertaken to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and to decisively shift electricity generation toward renewable energies, such as wind, solar and tidal power.

All this might seem calculated to strike fear into the heart of the combustion-engine industry, whose products are a major source of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). However, there is still an immense role for such engines to play, as the world’s energy requirements cannot be met solely from wind, tides and sun. Renewable, organic fuels, biofuels, such as vegetable oils or the bio-gas produced when organic matter decomposes, are set to play a major role. Their combustion only returns to the atmosphere the amount of CO2 the plant took out of the atmosphere during growth - in other words, they are CO2-neutral.

But experience has shown that such fuels can be problematic for the sensitive injection systems of small-bore, high-speed diesel engines. By contrast, the design of medium-speed engines, mainly used for marine propulsion, is more forgiving. “Since we design our medium-speed engines for probably the most exacting fuel in the world - heavy fuel oil (HFO) - our engines are able to take renewable fuels like vegetable oils in stride,” notes Holger Gehring, Senior Manager, Operating Fluids, at MAN Diesel in Augsburg. “In fact, we have already supplied several engines for operation on various types of vegetable and waste oils.”

Waste-to-Energy Milestone
MAN Diesel was recently involved in a ground-breaking cogeneration (co-gen) project that shows just what renewable fuels can achieve in terms of fossil-fuel savings, with a combination of ingenuity, innovation, public cooperation and government support.

The Austrian town of Fritzens located in Tyrol’s Inn River Valley likes used cooking oil - for generating their electricity. The core of their power plant facility is a 1,130-kW large-scale diesel generator set built by MAN Diesel. Creating energy from used cooking oil preserves the environment and saves fossil fuels. Christian Callegari, manager of the wastewater treatment facility in Fritzens, says, “As a result, we were able to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ - disposing of a waste product and exploiting a biofuel, hence reducing emissions of CO2 in an emissions-sensitive area.”

The co-gen plant in Fritzens, Tyrol, Austria, for which MAN Diesel supplied a 1,130-kW, medium-speed diesel generator set, shows that large, medium-speed diesel engines are not an endangered species - rather, they are ideally placed to play a major role in the EU’s CO2-reduction strategies.

Co-gen Plant in Fritzens, Tyrol, Austria. Click Here for larger image. photo: MAN Diesel

Christian Callegari, manager of the Fritzens wastewater treatment plant, explains: “Using gas generated in our sewage sludge digesters, we’ve operated a small cogen plant at our site for several years. Based on two 330-kW, spark-ignited gas engines, it covered part of our electrical load and part of our needs for thermal power, such as the acceleration of the digesting process and the drying of the residual sludge. In 2003 we had the chance to extend our co-gen capability when we devised a plan to take advantage of the large quantities of used cooking oil arising in Tyrol. As a result, we were able to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ - disposing of a waste product and exploiting a biofuel, hence reducing emissions of CO2 in an emissionssensitive area.” Callegari is referring to Tyrol’s Inn Valley, a mountainous area of great natural beauty but also one of Europe’s major transit arteries. An estimated 10 million heavy trucks pass through it every year.

The burning of used cooking oil at the Fritzens cogeneration plant is partly a response by the local wastewater utility, which also operates the Fritzens wastewater treatment plant, to the problem of used cooking oils in the local sewer pipes. Before a preventive program was initiated, the water utility regularly had to clear blockages in its pipes caused by congealed fat and oil. “Both private households and gastronomic establishments were in the habit of literally throwing their used fats and oils down the drain, and it was costing €400 per ton of disposed oil to clear the pipes,” Callegari notes. “But as we have shown, they were also throwing away a significant source of CO2-neutral energy!”

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