Avedøre Power Station getting ready to use wood pellets as fuel

The installation of a huge air cooler is an important step in the conversion of the power station.

Unit 1 at Avedøre Power Station is one step closer to using wood pellets instead of coal. The largest single component in the conversion has just been installed. It is a 34-tonne heavy cooler which is to be installed in the boiler house at a height of 20 meters.

Morten Reinhold, Senior Project Manager in DONG Energy and project manager of the conversion, said: “The conversion is progressing according to plan. And now that we’ve installed the large air cooler, we’ve taken an important step on the way towards a greener power station.”

At first, the wood pellets will be crushed in roller mills before they are blown into the 1,500 degrees hot boiler as dust in order to be converted to energy. The new air cooler will ensure that the crushed wood pellets will not ignite before they reach the boiler.

38 kilos per second

Reinhold explained: “We blow about 38 kilos of crushed wood pellets into the boiler every second. The large cooler must ensure that the air used for blowing the crushed wood pellets into the boiler does not exceed 130 degrees. If it does, the wood will ignite too early.”

The conversion of unit 1 at Avedøre Power Station started in April 2015, and the power station is scheduled to be ready to use wood pellets instead of coal in autumn 2016. This will enable Denmark’s largest power station to run exclusively on wood pellets and straw instead of coal and gas.

When unit 1 has been converted, we expect that Avedøre Power Station will generate district heating based on biomass for approximately 215,000 homes in Copenhagen as well as electricity corresponding to the annual consumption of more than 600,000 Danish households.

Photo: courtesy of DONG Energy A/S.