W.S.G. Isaac Newton

Development of a Plant Monitor in a Biomass Plant, HoSt Group

I did my internship at HoSt group, which specializes in the generation of renewable energy and valuable end products from residual streams. HoSt group is organized over four business units, namely:

1. Engineering, procurement and construction of anaerobic digestion and thermal conversion projects under the departments of Biogas and Thermal.

2. Bio-gas upgrading services under the company Bright Renewables.

3. Service and maintenance for customers

4. Energy as a Service in which HoSt operates their plants.

During my internship, I worked under HoSt Thermal, in which there was a desire to develop a plant monitor for their biomass combustion CHP plants. Specifically for a 14.5MWth and 3.5MWe installation taking 16.5MW fuel input consisting of low-grade wood residues.

The plant monitor is intended to use live data from the CHP plant to calculate key performance indicators (KPIs). Each KPI has an associated upper and lower limit, for which plant operators receive real-time alerts when limits are exceeded. The plant monitor provides suggested actions to assist operators in making informed decisions. Additionally, the plant monitor facilitates long-term trend analysis for predictive maintenance, reducing maintenance costs. Some KPIs include the boiler efficiency and the water content in the fuel.

Additionally, I performed tests at the CHP plant in Bemmel in which an alternative non-woody biomass, namely rice husk, was fed into the installation together with wood residues. The purpose of the test was to assess the feasibility of co-firing rice-husk alongside wood, in order to reduce the overall fuel costs.