USP&E presented preliminary Biomass Feasibility Study to Client in Sierra Leone
Jim Wessner, Bio Mass Program Manager and Glenn Cox, Director of Renewable Energy at USP&E spent more than a week in Sierra Leone gathering information for a biomass power plant feasibility study. A very preliminary version of the study was presented to USP&E’s client London Mining, who has an iron ore mine in Marampa. The biomass power plant will be used to power the mine site as well as the living quarters of the compound, Wessner says.
Cox presented a preliminary bankable feasibility study to London Mining that Wessner referred to as being the “preliminary of the preliminary.” The preliminary report and presentation was conducted to help the client decide whether or not they wanted to spend the money and go forward with the full feasibility study.
London Mining was very receptive to the presentation, Wessner said, and understood that it was in its primal form. Tentative plans have been made to do a final preliminary presentation of the feasibility study at London Mining Company’s London office in June.
The power plant will be of significant size and will encompass about 40 acres of land.
It was important to see where London Mining wanted the plant to be placed and to get a feel for their operation as well as how USP&E would tie the project into the existing power plant, he added. “We made a day trip to the actual mine site just to get familiar with the operation,” Wessner says. “We knew what we wanted to do and had an idea of where the power plant would go.”
The biomass plant will be powered by using Giant King Grass, an energy crop feedstock, which will be planted on agricultural land. The Giant King Grass will therefore be digested in an anaerobic digester to produce methane. Giant King Grass was a more favorable choice over Elephant Grass because it requires less land to harvest— only about 10,000 acres as opposed to 20,000 to 30,000. By Sierra Leone law, USP&E will only be allowed to lease the land.
During his week and a half stay in Africa, Wessner spent most of his time in various meetings discussing the project. He, Cox and company CEO Will Gruver, had the opportunity to meet with the Minister of Energy and Water Resources to discuss USP&E, its partnership with London Mining and how the company could potentially work with the government of Sierra Leone.
A meeting was also held with the general manager of Addax BioEnergy to discuss the agricultural land, logistics, technology and workforce requirements of the project. Wessner believes that the biomass plant will create anywhere from 500 to 1,000 jobs. “That’s part of the project,” he says. “We have to look at how we can help the local economy.”
The power plant project will also immensely reduce carbon emissions over a 20-year period. The benefit of constructing a biomass power plant far outweighs the cost.
“It’s a matter of convincing a client that they want to spend that much money up front in order to save money down the road,” Wessner says. “It’s a lot more to construct and operate than a diesel plant, but after about three years it starts paying for itself. And after 20 years, they can save a substantial amount of money…up to $2 billion.”
USP&E, headquartered in Celina, Texas, is a global technology solutions provider that focuses on engineering, procurement, construction, operations and maintenance of diesel generators and HFO power plants worldwide. For more information, please go to www.uspowerco.com
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