Biomass Power Plant

Toshiba’s Biomass Power Plant Starts Operating in Japan – April 27, 2017– Tokyo, Japan (Techreleased) – Toshiba Corporation today started commercial operation of its first ever biomass power plant, a 50MW facility that will supply enough electricity for 80,000 households and reduce CO2 emissions to about 300,000 tons a year. The newly retrofitted Mikawa Power Plant, operated by Toshiba subsidiary SIGMA POWER Ariake Corporation (SPAC) in Omuta, Fukuoka prefecture, has been equipped to burn biomass in a circulating fluidized bed boiler, and can handle a variety of fuels.

Biomass Power Plant

“We are pleased to commission our very first eco-friendly biomass power plant,” said Mr. Takao Konishi, Vice President of the Thermal & Hydro Power Systems & Services Div. in Toshiba’s Energy Systems & Solutions Company. “We are building a broad portfolio of environmentally friendly power technologies, from renewables through to carbon capture, and we also continue to test and develop leading-edge steam turbines and generators that offer higher efficiency and improved performance.”

The plant will be fueled with palm kernel shells (PKS), the highly fibrous shell fractions left after extracting oil in palm oil mills. SPAC will import 0.2 million tons of PKS, mainly from Indonesia via Miike port in Omuta. It will be stored in a newly-built roofed yard with the area of about three soccer fields and a storage capacity of 30,000 tons.

Mikawa Power Plant is an important facility for research and deployment for new technologies, where Toshiba’s forward-looking projects currently include a demonstration of its carbon capture technology. The company is currently undertaking construction of a large-scale carbon capture facility on the Plant, as a part of the five year “Demonstration of Sustainable CCS Technology Project” sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment. Together with deployment of biomass power plant technology, Toshiba will continue to develop power plant system solutions that realize energy generation with fewer environmental impacts.

Outline of Mikawa Power Plant

Power plant name: SIGMA POWER Ariake Corporation Mikawa Power Plant
Location: 1-46, Shinminato-cho, Omuta city, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan
Plant type: Biomass Power Plant
Generating capacity: 50MW
Start of operation: May 1, 2005