October 2012

Technology from Duisburg will in future supply the Hawaian island of Kaua'i with electricity.

Following a development period of more than two years on 23.10.2012 the financial close was reached for the power plant project handled in the contracting business field.

Jointly with the financing partner Deutsche Bank New York and its shareholders in the project company Green Energy Team LLC, which will manage and operate the plant, Standardkessel Baumgarte Contracting GmbH has thus successfully cleared the last hurdle for the immediate start of the construction work on the plant on the island of Kaua'i, the most northwesterly island of the Hawaiian archipelago.

Within a construction time of approx. 2 years, a biomass-fired power plant with the tested and proven grate firing technology of Standardkessel GmbH will be constructed which, on the basis of fuel from natural wood chips from local, fast-growing wood types, will in future feed 6.7 MWel into the grid of the local grid operator Kaua'i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC). This energy quantity corresponds to the power requirements of about 8500 households and covers 11 % of the island’s entire energy demand.

The plant is conceptually the first of its kind in the USA. An outstanding feature of the owner/operator concept is the ‘closed loop’ model, according to which the power plant company also manages the complete fuel procurement of exclusively local fuels autonomously. This was made possible by, during the project planning phase, more than 2000 hectares of land being secured by purchase and long-term leases, on which in the future the required fuel quantity of approx. 65,000 t per year will be generated. In this way it will be ensured that operation of the power plant in the medium and long terms will be independent at the fuel end and fuel quantities, qualities and costs will be under control.

A particular challenge was the outside financing of the project which, after the financial crisis and the persisting crisis of the euro, finally succeeded with the partner Deutsche Bank New York. Further projects of a comparable constellation are being worked on within the Group and are to become ready for implementation in the coming year. Hence the Group has succeeded in establishing, besides the two business fields of new plant construction and service, also the contracting business field. This step was, from the point of view of the company’s management, the right one in order to be able to use the Group’s competences more extensively and to create a business field with on-going business which is largely independent of the fluctuations of the economic cycle.

Please visit the following link for further information:

website.kiuc.coop/content/biomass