Storage & reclaiming - USA

Stacker reclaimers fuel three Virginia biomass plants 

In a bid to diversify its bioenergy portfolio, Dominion Virginia Power, called for stacker reclaimer expertise to secure waste wood fuel for three of its biomass renewable energy plants in Virginia, USA. Bruks Siwertell technology offered the ideal solution, handling the most difficult wood residues.

Customer need

Dominion Virginia Power, part of Dominion Energy, continues to expand its renewable energy portfolio, looking for ways to produce and supply sustainable power. As part of this strategy, it looked to convert three of its coal-fired power stations to using biomass.

Generating energy from waste wood, or end of life timber, makes good, sustainable use of a renewable natural resource. Recognizing this, and as part of its renewable energy drive, Dominion required new dry bulk material handling systems that were able to unload, stack and reclaim difficult waste wood residues for these three newly-converted biomass power-generation sites in Virginia; Altavista, Hopewell and Southampton. 

Our Solution

Dominion’s original coal operations began in 1992 and the sites were converted to biomass in 2013 as part of its commitment to generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Furthermore, ash produced from the Altavista station is used by local farmers to improve the soil for their crops.

Following detailed considerations, Bruks Siwertell technology was contracted to serve all three separate locations, securing biomass fuel lines. At each power facility, Bruks Siwertell supplied a 84,950m3 (3,000,000ft3) stacker reclaimer and two 22.9m (75ft) back-on truck dumpers with reclaiming hoppers. 

The three stacker reclaimers have been designed to stack wood residues at a rate of 270t/h and reclaim at a rate of 115t/h. All systems have been designed to efficiently handle difficult wood waste at high capacities. 

Each site uses around 600,000 metric tons of biomass a year and delivers about 51MW of energy, contributing to more than half of the company’s 273MW biomass-generated power target.