EnviTec OptiPacks offers optimization solutions for existing biogas plant

Photo by EnviTec Biogas AG

Making existing plants fit for the future in a cost-effective manner? The repowering experts at EnviTec Biogas AG have very special formula for this. With EnviTec OptiPacks, even older biogas plants can reach their optimum, reducing operating costs at the same time. The intelligent software packages from the biogas all-rounder from Lower Saxony were developed last year and have achieved success on the market: “Our OptiPacks ‘Slurry direct’ and ‘Rezi direct’ are currently enjoying particular popularity with our customers”, reports Jan Meistermann from EnviTec Service. The two software solutions reduce pump wear and accelerate the mixing process while also reducing the consumption of self-generated power.

With its upgradable technology and systems, EnviTec is addressing the strong demand for intelligent repowering, because today’s biogas plant technology has to be more efficient than it was a few years ago. “This is something felt most keenly by the operators of existing plants due to rising prices of raw materials and energy costs”, confirms Stephan Stiens, Manager of Technical Service at EnviTec. The EnviTec OptiPack “Power demand measurement”, for example, optimises plant power costs, with the upgrade of this option offering the possibility of an automated load shedding management.

Individual consulting for optimised handling

For those looking for more convenient service and maintenance, there’s the OptiPack “Maintenance manager”. This improves plant care and, with its individual configuration of maintenance intervals based on the activities of the individual plant components, ensures optimal pre-planning of maintenance tasks. For existing combined heat and power plants (CHPs), EnviTec OptiPack “CHP ventilator” provides optimised handling: Here too, upgrading improves handling of the setpoint temperature in plant parameters and thus lead to a reduction of speed and running time. Customers like Hubert Westendorf, who operates a 500 kW biogas plant built in 2011, thereby profit from a significant reduction in energy costs. “The individual consulting and the many optimisation options were the decisive impulse for me for considering the repowering of my plant, as new as it still is”, explains the 29-year-old farmer from Lohne.

And EnviTec also offers expansion options in the area of feeding technology: The optimisation of feeding management with Feedcontrol improves resource utilisation. “In day-to-day operation, we have been able to register a substrate savings of up to 10%”, Stiens adds. To accommodate various feeding systems, EnviTec developed two OptiPacks at the same time: OptiPack “Flexible pressure” on the one hand, which offers better management of disturbance factors such as external temperature fluctuations, and OptiPack “Flexible gas filling level” on the other, which allows for participation in the balancing energy market.

As the repowering expert Stiens sums up: “Our OptiPacks offer our customers – be they external plant operators or EnviTec customers – an unbeatable double advantage in terms of both handling and cost-efficiency.

For more information, please visit http://www.envitec-biogas.com.

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