French magazine Energie Plus has put Clarke Energy forward as a good example of a traditional key player adjusting to the constant developing biogas sector. The article shows that today’s companies have to adapt to the markets to survive. It demonstrates Clarke Energy being an inspiring case of a company that has looked at innovative possibilities to handle that new and constantly changing sector.
Adaptation: a necessity
The possibility to recover biomethane by feeding it into the network or using it in fuel has opened a market for new ventures. But it has also pushed the traditional players like engine manufacturers to expand their field of activities. Take Clarke Energy, for instance…
Even if the biogas industry’s kick start was several years ago, recent evolutions see professionals obliged to adapt their offer for recovery of biomethane with a biological origin, whatever its source.
As did Clarke Energy. The distributor of and service partner for GE (General Electric) Jenbacher engines already manages a solid fleet in France, based on natural gas (321 engines/617 MW) and increasingly on biogas (121 engines/139 MW). New doors have opened through regulations, which has led them to opt for new technological solutions. The first being the expansion of their range of engines with lower-power plants. Indeed, the purchase cost is what’s most important about the <500 kW plants, not counting that the Ministry of Agriculture’s nitrogen autonomy methane gas production Energy Plan should encourage the development of small plants on farms. Clarke Energy have thus consolidated their 530 kW engine and chosen a new Energolux unit, on a Liebherr engine base, to capture a range between 135 and 332 kW.
Injection in addition to cogeneration
In addition to this expansion of their cogeneration range, Clarke also wants to respond to the need for biomethane recovery. Even though they possess high competences in engineering, this means specializing in biogas purification. A big change for an engine manufacturer! The appeal of a new market (we’re counting 400 injection projects in France) and the regulatory possibility of a cogeneration/injection coupling have justified this decision. Most importantly, they had to carry out an analysis of available purification technologies: washing with water, amine scrubbing, membrane purification, adsorption, etc. They also needed to find a partner in the field among the existing potential suppliers in more advanced countries like Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, etc., as well as in France. Eventually, Clarke Energy France chose a technologically mature solution, membrane purification, of a “plug & play” type, easily adjustable to any project size. They chose to sign a partnership with none other than the French company Prodeval and its research department CEFT.
Their purification process named ValopurR relies on the use of high-performance membranes (Sepuran GreenR) whose output allows for a methane loss of <1% during CO₂ infiltration and other critical elements (steam, sulphur and halogenated elements, siloxanes, etc.). In the long run, by appropriating this technology, Clarke Energy want to propose an appealing offer, with guaranteed results on biogas purification. They also imagine proposing a catalytic oxidization offer, as well as possibly proposing biogas compression and storage for bioNGV applications.
For such applications, they can rely on GE’s “CNG In A BoxR” system: a solution entirely integrated with bioNGV compression and storage. All these choices seem entirely in line with the group’s global strategy to propose an added value to their clients with high-quality engineering, installation and maintenance.
Stéphane Signoret