Two gas engines enhanced by ABB’s two-stage turbocharging solution, Power2, have facilitated a 10% improvement in power efficiency at a French market garden in Serres Vinet. After over two years fault-free operation, the exhaust gas that is usually a waste product from the engines is now routinely turned into a prime resource for growing crops.
For more than two years now, ABB’s two-stage turbocharging solution, Power2, has been setting new standards for engine efficiency and performance while minimizing environmental impact. At the beginning of 2010 in Machecoul, France, Power2 was put on two lean-burn, spark-ignited gas engines at the Serres Vinet market garden – a first in France. To this day, this technical solution is still at the heart of two cogeneration plants powering Serres Vinet’s original greenhouses and 17-hectare expansion.
Known as a “combined heat and power” (or CHP) plant, the setup in the greenhouse generates power flexibly and supplies it to the local electricity grid. Facilitated by Power2, these engines generate all the hot water and electricity required for the market garden’s extensive tomato, cucumber and lettuce greenhouse cultivation.
Along with many benefits that improve technical operations, the CHP installation with Power2 has helped minimize the environmental impact of Serres Vinet’s operations. Heat from the engines is used to warm the greenhouses when it is cool or is stored for later use, and the CO2 from the exhaust gas, having passed through special catalytic converters for cleaning (SCR and oxidation), is cooled to about 50°C and fed to plants in the greenhouse. This process increases the photosynthetic conversion of CO2 and water to sugar and oxygen in plants. So apart from providing heat and electricity, the CHP system also helps increase crop yields.
Adding Power2-enhanced turbocharging modules to the system guaranteed very high reliability and turbocharging efficiency. In more than two years of operation, there was no unplanned downtime. Power output was improved by 10 percent. And when ABB engineers inspected the installation for the first time ever last year, they found that all the components in the Power2 340-H turbocharging system were fully operational and that the installation could have continued running reliably without alteration.
Indeed, the installation’s performance has been so impressive that French company Forclum, which specializes in the installation of electricity systems, purchased two more gas engines with Power2 for another greenhouse.
“The efficiency, flexibility and reliability of these two-stage turbocharged gas engines have been outstanding,” says Gilles Marquerat, director of Forclum’s power production department.
Serres Vinet – A total of 30 hectares, corresponding to 42 soccer fields
One of the gas engines at the Serres Vinet CHP plant
